


Welcome To The Machine

by invisibledeity



Series: God Complex [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Anal Sex, Ardyn backstory, Bad Touch Chancellor, Bad coping mechanisms, Bloodletting, Body Horror, Bondage, Catharsis fic, Coercion, Gunplay, Identity Issues, Imprisonment, Interrogation, M/M, Mental Conditioning, Mindfuck, Needles, Nerve Damage, Nonconsensual Touching, Not a romance story, Objectification, Obsessive Behaviour, Ownership, Poor Prompto, Psychological Horror, Public Humiliation, Purification, Rape, Sexual Harassment, Strappado, Suspension, Tentacles, Torture, an exploration of the psychology of a reluctant accursed messiah, and it ain't pretty, ardyn lucis caelum - Freeform, but hey that's obsession for you, don't expect much comfort, expect around 8 to 10 chapters I guess, expect the tags to be added to, in which Prompto cannot catch a break, inappropriate use of machine lubricant, it hurts, it's the culmination of everything ardyn's worked towards in the previous parts of this series, let me know if I miss any tags and I'll add em in, light touches of stockholm syndrome, noooooope, references to self injury, stress positions, studies in social isolation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:26:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledeity/pseuds/invisibledeity
Summary: The moment Prompto reaches Gralea is the moment everything changes. In his mind it's all about Noctis and the Crystal, at this point. But one thing's for certain: he should never underestimate Ardyn.Still sore from Bahamut's betrayal, Ardyn is constantly seeking other outlets for his own catharsis. Since the attempt at creating his own godly emanation in the Shrine failed, he has no choice but to get ever more creative.





	1. Biding Time

**Author's Note:**

> I felt a lot of things, had to get it out, so here it is. probably makes more sense to read the other parts of this series first. Because at this stage, Prompto has really not been having a good time. 
> 
> If you have read the previous fics, you know what to expect. 
> 
> If you haven't, please read the tags, for the love of god.
> 
> Fic title from none other than Pink Floyd.

Gralea was a lot further than it looked. He’d been on the snowmobile for almost a full day, and was only just starting to break out of the mountainscape. Long snowfields lay ahead of him, the cold tore at his cheeks and seeped into his stiff joints, and he couldn’t feel the tips of his toes against the footrest. Prompto wanted to rest, and soon. Yes, he’d parted from Aranea with a smile on his face, but it had fast disappeared after he’d been left with nothing but his own company once more.

            Now the winds drove forward ever harder against him, a katabatic flow that grew in strength the further the shielding faces of the mountains receded at his back. Out in the open there was less to think about, no obstacles to navigate around, and this left his mind free to wander. It wasn’t what he wanted, not when there was so much rolling about beneath the surface.

            The sun began its downward swing, revolving ever lower until it glinted sharp off the crystal snow into his eyes, so bright that even with the snow goggles on, he still struggled against its brilliance. As it moved further westward, he followed its path, guiding the snowmobile gently its way. If he carried on in that direction, followed it to the point where it set, he’d eventually reach Gralea.

            He didn’t want to reach Gralea. But some things had to be done.

            Noctis would be there, looking for the crystal, and that was the only thought that kept him going, really. Felt like weeks had passed since he fell from the train, although he knew it had only been a few days in real time. Some of that extra time came from - well, it had been caused by… He stopped. He didn’t want to think about it. Heavy-coated shadow of a tall and fray-haired form pressing in at the periphery of his vision. The echo of the name that caused all of this to happen, so sharp at the edge of his ear, hissing in when the wind died down, hanging around at the borders, and his brain kept trying to do this strange thing when the name got too close to being interpreted by his… by whatever the part of the brain that processed language was called… But it would garble the word, make it all mashed up like cutout letters from a newspaper. Illegible. He wasn’t in control of this action, it was an automatic reflex, some shallow internal attempt at self-protection. And all that remained was the wine red hair and the smell of incense and the shadows clustering.

            _Hold on to Aranea’s words instead. She said my friends were worried about me. She said they cared… She cared._

That was enough for now. After the Valley of Light, after the horrors of what happened there and then the revelations of the Magitek facility, he’d needed her words so badly.

            He idly wondered what she was going to do now. She’d been rather vague about that. Odd, for someone who apparently had a change of heart from the Empire. Unless she was worried about him leaking information back to the Empire somehow. Which was never going to happen, unless he was somehow recaptured.

            _Not gonna happen_. _Keep following the sun._

He breathed in the chill air, let it fill his lungs deep and cold, refreshing as a long drink after a morning run. And he carried on.

 

As night clustered in, Prompto had to abandon the snowmobile by the wayside, because he had started to break into more built-up territory. First, the snow petered out into dying brown cornfields, then, the first appearance of concrete on the horizon. Buildings, farm huts and blocky apartments rose in the distance, flat and square and expressionless, indications of a monotone existence that bore no rhyme or reason other than the bare minimum required to survive. Some building faces didn’t even have windows. Already, this landscape felt dead to the very core of its soul.

            _This_ was the capital city of his country. His true country. He was finally seeing it for real. And he hated it.

            He’d followed the sun to the end of the road now, and all that remained was to reach the centre of the city. Still on the outskirts, he had no idea how far away that would be. After the snowmobile was shoved unceremoniously behind the broken ruins of an old shed, he trudged onward by foot, wishing distantly he’d grabbed a few more energy bars from the Magitek facility during his frantic escape.

            The footsteps he left behind turned from snow imprints to slush marks to dusty indentations along the course of only hundreds of metres. Soon, the transition to tarmac was complete. Bits of bracken and dying plants clustered around the broken pavement, and overgrown hedges interrupted the fields in between buildings. He saw a lot of crows, a lot of pigeons, but no other animals, although there was the occasional rustling in the deeper bushes that made him hurry on. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about approaching the capital city from these broken-down borders was the fact that it looked eerily similar to that awful nightmare he’d suffered after the events of the Vesperpool. Just down that rise there, for example, he could so clearly imagine the semi-rural pathway leading to the house where he’d seen his parents in the dream. And now, getting closer to the central hub of activity, the streets were as grey and brown and drab as he’d seen it in his mind’s eye. It was enough to set him on edge, not that he wasn’t already tense and flighty as a daggerquill.

            The further into urban territory he went, the more he covered up his gun from view. Last thing he wanted was trouble, and he was too scared to replace the weapon in the armiger, for fear that something would happen to Noctis while it was in storage, for fear he wouldn’t be able to recall it should he need to. So it stayed, holstered and out of sight, strapped beneath his jacket. He continued on, as electric pylons gained ground and buildings rose ever higher against the frost-laden sky, seeming more like tombstones the further in he went, regardless of the increasing human activity. Nobody he passed spared him a second glance, and for that he was grateful. It was strange, though, as he noticed more and more rubbish bags by the wayside, more cars parked in odd spots, seemingly abandoned. Litter and old newspaper lined the streets, off-white and superfluous as snow. Yes, there was some activity around him, but it was nothing like he had expected. It was like the city stood half-empty. He remembered the snippets of documents he’d caught sight of in the Magitek facility and wondered, distantly, if the outbreak that had occurred there had happened here, too.

 

Night had set in proper now, and the streets felt ominous, somehow dangerous, as though daemons were liable to jump out at any minute. Perhaps it was due to the general high tension he held in every inch of his body, the fact he hadn’t had a proper chance to rest in those long days that had passed like weeks. He was merely running on adrenaline and high hopes, and both those things were a dwindling resource.

            A hush fell over the streets and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be out of there. As the last person in his line of sight hurried down into an apartment block and out of sight, as curtains were slowly drawn around him, shutting out light from the world, he decided too to look for shelter.

            Soon, a solution presented itself. A dingy backstreet inn, with a hand-scrawled sign stating ‘Rooms Available’, beckoned. Prompto considered. It was out of the way enough that he needn’t worry about being noticed. Seemed safe. Obscure. And cheap. He took a deep breath, weighing up his options. He really didn’t want to be caught on the streets after dark. After a moment’s pause, he gathered his presence and walked in.

 

The wooden doorframe creaked softly when he entered, and a sullen, tired face turned his way from behind the bar. The woman that stood there looked at him so curiously, so judgementally, that he hazarded a glance behind him just to check nobody else had followed him in. Then he remembered he was still wearing his snow goggles. A little abashedly, he removed them, and gave the woman - who he had to assume was the innkeeper - an embarrassed look. She didn’t return it, or soften up in the slightest, although she did offer a greeting.

            ‘What can I do ye for?’ She’d already grabbed a pint glass from behind the bar, but he waved it away, saying,

            ‘I, uh, I was actually wondering if you had a room available?’ When she made no immediate comment, he added, for clarification, ‘The sign on the door…’

            She nodded like it was obvious, and reached for a thick journal to one side of the counter, pages all overflowing and tattered, stained in spots with beer and coffee marks.

            ‘Yer, we got rooms, but… hang on a sec…’ She scanned the book with dour expression. A click of the tongue, then she said, ‘Right. You can take the top floor, second room. Jes’ gotta get it cleaned out first. Last resident only just left an ‘arf hour ago.’

            ‘Hey, no problem,’ Prompto said, and for the first time he became acutely aware of how different his accent was. Made him stand out like a red kite against the clouds. He wished it wasn’t so painfully obvious that he was from Lucis, at least, culturally-speaking. She must no doubt be wondering what the hell he was doing in this little backwater enclave of the city.

            The innkeeper made no comment on this, however, merely saying, ‘Mind waiting by the bar ’til the room’s ready?’

            He nodded by way of agreement, not wanting to open his mouth again and make the disparity of his accent more obvious. Edging further along the bar to where a lone stool lay, he scanned the room for more places to sit and wait it out. He didn’t know how it had escaped his notice before - perhaps he should blame the tunnel vision and the literal goggles - but the bar was far from empty. Behind him, wooden benches lined the windows, as did tables and extra chairs, and four, no, five people were there, quietly minding their own business. Two seemed to be together, the others all separate. All drank ale from grubby pint glasses, and nobody seemed to be looking at each other.

            Prompto didn’t spend too much time looking around - he didn’t want to attract undue attention, after all. He slunk onto the bar stool quietly and cast an eye back to the innkeeper. After making a small mark in the ledger in pencil, she trudged over to him.

            ‘That’ll be thirty for the room, lad.’

            He had never been gladder that he’d picked up the scattered coins in that abandoned facility canteen. Niflheim currency was vastly different from what he was used to. It looked funny. Had strange imprints along the edges, and some coins even had holes in the centre, for some bizarre reason. He spent a while rifling through his pocket, trying not to make the clunking sound too obvious, and failing miserably. He ended up giving over too much, which earned him a raised eyebrow, although the stern woman said nothing, simply handing back the extra change.

            After pocketing the money behind the bar, she turned back to him. ‘So, while ye wait, what’ll it be.’ The implication was that he’d require a drink, and, he had to admit he was thirsty after travelling so far. So he spend a short moment surveying his options.

            ‘Got any, uh, soda?’

            ‘Jes’ ale, or water. Hard liquor if you've a mind.’

            He didn’t much fancy trying the water in this place. And no way was he touching the spirits. He chose the ale.

            She poured him a glass filled to the brim, with froth slipping over the edge in an irritating way that ran all sticky across his hands when he lifted it, and then she left him to it, returning to her perch at the far end of the bar, yelling to someone else out back to get upstairs and clean his room while she was at it. Prompto curled his boots round the lower rung of the stool, made himself a little smaller than he needed to, and sat quietly at the bar, nursing his drink.

            The ale wasn’t all that bad, honestly. Bit sour, but he could get used to it.

            He focussed his attentions on the fine grains and whorls on the wooden countertop, breaking off his gaze every few minutes to take another sip of ale. Certainly seemed to be taking a long time to clean that room. After half an hour had passed, his glass was nearly empty, he felt a little light-headed, and he started wondering what the hell was taking so long.

            One of the patrons behind him rose and retired to what presumably was his room, plodding up the staircase in a manner that all but necessitated a resigned sigh. It was oddly comforting to Prompto, the notion that he wasn’t the only one in low spirits. And more than that; it reminded him of something Aranea had said. Not recently, but way back, in Steyliff Grove, before he’d up and quit and returned to… and, well, before he’d left the ruins. _Yeah, leave it there, Prom. You don’t need to consider the rest_. But what Aranea said now, she’d mentioned the daemon research in Gralea, how the citizens had been suffering, how the ministry had been neglecting them in favour of military advancement. Just how bad had the situation gotten?

            Not like he was going to ask to find out.

            He went back to his ale, and was disappointed to find it was almost finished. Only the swill at the bottom of the glass left, and he was no ale drinker, so he was disturbed to find it didn’t taste good at all. A sort of… sediment had settled there, and it made him almost choke up with the sudden bitter, gritty sensation.

            Really, what was taking them so long with the room?

            He swirled the small bit of liquid that was left in the glass, watched the sediment he’d managed to avoid imbibing as it whisked around in miniature eddies. It was quite enrapturing, it reminded him of something. Of smoke, of…

            _High church walls and blue half-light._

No.

            Too late, he was thinking it. And in a sudden breaking wave, the feeling spread across his skin until he was shivering hot and cold, as though a fever had gripped him with deadened, vicelike fingers. A shot of whisky straight to the pit of his belly, burning his insides out. He gripped the glass, swirled it in a sharp, jagged hand movement, to shake up the sediment and break it from the smoke-like patterns it made, an automatic attempt to stop it from looking so much like candle smoke and daemon tendrils. Of course, the thoughts were so deep inside his head that this action alone didn’t stop it. So he switched to the next tack, traced a finger along the glass, drew out a repetitive pattern, trying not to breathe too deeply in case the other silent drinkers in the bar noticed anything was amiss. He didn’t want to cause a scene. But he had to control the frantic visions, memories, playing out inside his head somehow.

            He was sure he was going to be sick.

            The innkeeper came over, and for an awful moment he feared she would ask him what was up. But she just gave him this knowing look, and refilled his glass. Patted her hand gently on the table by way of asking for money. He paid up. Started drinking the next one down.

            ‘Bet yer glad you found this place, lad,’ one of the patrons finally spoke up from behind him. The gruff voice made him jump at first, but it was kindly enough.

            _Not that that meant anything,_ he thought grimly. _He_ was kindly enough to begin with, too. _And look how that turned out._

            ‘Uh, yeah,’ he said, casting a glance back at the man. He was an unassuming guy in ordinary clothes. Nothing flashy. No hat, no grand overcoat. Just brown overalls and a woollen jumper. A face that bore excessive lines and receding, straggly hair. It calmed his nerves somewhat.

            ‘Course y’are. Wouldn’t want ter be out there after dark. Not wiv’ all them daemons about.’

            ‘It’s all gone to shit,’ his mate proudly proclaimed. And with that, they returned to their drinks. Prompto was glad there was no deeper desire to converse. He was feeling far from up to it.

            At some point half way through his second drink, he started to perceive a deep darkness falling over the room. Well, it seemed more to be coming from outside, in the street. Like some malevolent force was approaching. Again, with the paranoia. The leftover stress. The drunk patrons and their talk of daemons.

            The sinister feeling crystallised to a point somewhere far behind him, and it made his ear twinge, burning hot like someone was talking about him, as the old playground rhyme went. Then it dissipated like morning mist, and he thought of it no further, breathing out a sigh of relief. Sounded like it had started raining outside. That’s all it was, just rain.

            He watched the innkeeper complete a crossword, considered asking her about the room, decided again not to. Best to wait until he’d finished his drink.

            A soft creak scraped out behind him. The door opening. Prompto stayed facing the bar; he didn’t fancy the chances of whoever was entering catching his gaze and taking it as a cue to strike up conversation. Remain still, static, inconspicuous. Another swirl of his glass, another idle sip.

            ‘’Ello, there,’ the innkeeper said. ‘Evenin’ to you - shall I fix you up a pint?’

            A grunt from the newcomer. Evidently not. Prompto heard the innkeeper grunt in response, and return to scratching her crossword answers off on the thin newspaper pulp. The newcomer strode towards the bar, probably keen to check out the selection of hard liquor behind the counter, because as far as Prompto could see, there was only one type of ale available and they already didn’t seem keen on that.

            He started to wish he hadn’t picked the bar stool, because the stranger drew uncomfortably close in order to get a better look. It was weird how he didn’t pick up on the danger until it was too late. But there it was, the familiar sensation. The air constricting to a choke point around him, the mild illusion that he was somehow drowning out of water. The hand placed slowly, patiently, ceremoniously, by his side all shrouded in long sleeves and heavy fabrics. A hint of grey patterning. And an overwhelming sandalwood smell, dense and heady as the ale he was drinking, pitching the contents of his stomach like a wayward bowstring, threatening to upend it all across the counter. One hand flew to his mouth for fear he would actually go through with it and be sick. Gag reflex kicking in, all sorts of ghost sensations and tastes echoing through along with it. Sour, salt, liquorice.

            And then the voice. Sweet and smooth as if nothing bad had ever happened between them.

            ‘What would you recommend, my dear?’

            _No,_ his mind screamed out. Denying reality while his eyes damn near popped out his head. The whites undoubtedly showing at the edges, because no, this couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. _Ardyn was here._

He snapped his head to the side. Looked.

            He had never wished to be more wrong in all his life. The face that haunted the corners of his mind that he dared not search out while conscious, here brought into sharp focus before and above him, towering once more like the man so loved to do, it was too much to bear. He felt his eyebrows pitch upward, muscles clenched into a mask of disbelief, to the point of causing pain. Ardyn’s face seemed darker than usual amid the dimness of the bar. Seemed as though shadows shifted across the skin’s surface, as though his eye sockets were black holes leading down into deep gravity wells with no way back out. A gaze at once magnetic and terrifying. The amber in his eyes coming out as more a deep, dusky orange in this low light. Prompto felt his throat constrict. And all this in the space of one fraction for a second. He should be used to it by now, but it was too much.

            ‘I said-’

            ‘I heard what you said!’ The words shot out before he could control them, and he kicked his own stool out from under him, slipping to the side while the stool acted as a diversion, falling against Ardyn’s legs. Then he ran. Didn’t matter that everyone in the bar was staring at him now. And no fucking way did he care if there were daemons outside. He’d run, and he’d keep running as far as he could. This nightmare - running through the streets of Gralea, then seeing Ardyn at the windowpane of whatever refuge he found - wasn’t going to become real. He wouldn’t let it. He’d run until his legs dropped off if that’s what it took.

            Nobody in the bar tried to stop him, not even Ardyn, and at first he thought this was because he’d been so fast, so quick to react, so perfect off the mark.

            Then he ran outside, and straight into the cold steel arms of a squadron of Magitek Troopers. He barely had time to let his mouth fall open in surprise, let alone make a grab for his gun; he was marched straight back into the inn, stumbling over the small wooden sill of the door, grappling against the frame, straining in a frenzy but unable to combat the strength of metal and daemonic energy within the short timeframe he was afforded. Not so fast to react now.

            With one trooper gripping either arm in an excessive display of strength, he was brought face to face with Ardyn where he waited by the upturned bar stool, leaning slightly against the counter, calm as a bird come to roost. Gods, how he wanted to wipe that painted smile clean off his face. He glowered as the troopers brought him uncomfortably close, and while his skin shivered and his heart beat double, no, triple, he pushed down the fear and sickness in favour of a feverish anger. It was of the last resort variety, but it would do better than breaking down in tears in front of a group of complete strangers - who, coincidentally, were all staring at the chaotic scene before them, aghast, drinks quite forgotten. No chance of going quietly now. So Prompto rose his head high, all strained and distressed, and he spat at Ardyn. Made a physical point of his distaste.

            It missed Ardyn by a mile, but the man wasted no time in backhanding his cheek sharply. The sudden shock of it should have made more of a pained impact, Prompto thought. But he guessed by now he was already closing himself off internally. Becoming numb. A trained response by now to the man’s presence.

            ‘Now, that’s no way to greet an old friend.’ The tolerant voice one would use on a disobedient pet, or a child who had only one remaining chance of pleasing their guardian.

            Prompto let his expression give all the reply that was needed. Ardyn looked back with fondness, then on to the innkeeper.

            ‘Thank you for passing the message on, Ma’am.’ He gave her a reverence in his tone that she didn’t deserve. Prompto knew him well enough to tell by now when he truly meant a compliment and when he was merely posturing.

            ‘’Course, Chancellor. ‘Appy to ‘elp.’

            Prompto shot an angry glare at the innkeeper.

            ‘You…’

            ‘Sorry, mate,’ the innkeeper said, her voice weary and resigned. ‘’E told us to watch out for a certain fugitive, right? And seems he found his man.’

            _His man_. Prompto could have kicked her for that.

            A short laugh from Ardyn.

            ‘Now, don’t cause any more of a scene.’ He nodded to one of the troopers. ‘Cuff him, will you?’

            The uncomfortable sensation of metal being clamped around each wrist, yanked forcefully behind him, then he was pushed into Ardyn, stumbling awkwardly with the lack of balance his cuffed arms afforded him. Ardyn, of course, steadied him with a hand placed calmly, possessively, either side of his waist, and he tensed up instantly, ashamed and embarrassed at being so humiliated like this in front of the strangers he’d been drinking alongside only seconds before. A mantra surfaced in his head. _Not here, not now. Please, for the love of Shiva. Please, not here._

Ardyn went no further, mercifully.

            ‘I expected no less of you, to make it to the capital alone,’ he murmured. ‘But come, it’s time I brought you in. You have a lot to answer for.’

            While the troopers were re-occupied with escorting Prompto off the premises, Ardyn turned to the remaining patrons in the bar, and with a flourish of his hat and the mildest of bows, he said, ‘I am so terribly sorry to have disturbed your evening, gentlemen.’

            When they were outside, Ardyn made a point of gripping over his tattooed right wrist, just above where the cuffs dug in. Instantly, his face fell with mock dismay, and he said, ‘Oh! I do apologise… It’s not still sore from that nasty burn, is it?’

            He seemed to greatly enjoy the crestfallen expression that descended over Prompto then. In a voice shaky with disbelief, because he’d come so far and how, at this stage, could there be yet more cruel surprises, Prompto said, ‘How did you know about that?’

            He already knew what the answer was going to be, and a sour lump caught his throat as he remembered what Aranea had done round the campfire, back in the mountains, after she had healed his self-inflicted burn wound. He’d sort of… pushed the memory to the side once it had happened, and now it returned with full sharpness. Aranea, throwing him back against the rocky campsite floor and straddling him, gripping him like a vice while his body went so cripplingly slack in her hands.

            Had it really been okay just because she was a woman? He knew the answer was no, knew that at the time he’d dissociated out of reality so sharply he’d managed to convince himself he had been totally fine with her straddling him like that. But truthfully? It hadn’t been okay.

            Even less okay was the idea that it had been Ardyn all along, wearing her goddamn face to pull such a move on him.

            ‘It’s like I already told you,’ Ardyn said, using the words Aranea had done as a parting gift back out on the snowfields, ‘The boy becomes a man.’

            At this, Prompto broke, loudly and violently, struggling against his bonds, against the metal armoured frames that restrained him either side.

            ‘No! You - you don’t get to claim that from me!’

            Ardyn merely laughed, and then came another touch upon his head, still way too palpable even through the woollen cap. Then Ardyn grabbed his upper arm, pulled him towards a vehicle that lay across the street.

            ‘My, that journey of self-discovery in your dear father’s laboratory gave you quite the ego, didn’t it? But never mind that. You’re right on time, so let me assist you toward your final destination.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I gave Niflheim its own currency because it doesn't make cultural sense in the game that they'd use gil like the Lucians do.
> 
> Also expect chapter updates every week roughly


	2. Nobody Knows Where You Are (How Near or How Far)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Prompto learns all about Gralean hospitality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is again from by the same guys who inspired the fic title. It's a really great album.

 

The van had barred windows and smelled like stale milk. These two facts alone were bad enough, but even if it had been as fancy and lush as the Regalia, the last thing Prompto wanted to do was get in a vehicle with Ardyn again. Every step toward the back door of the thing made his stomach jolt as if being stabbed. Tremulous breath rose up the back of his throat, pulling at his vocal chords, trying to turn into a scream the closer the memory drew. He started to fidget against the handcuffs.

            Along the grubby, grease-marked doors, emblazoned in that blocky font in pale, flaking red paint, was the word _Garda_. Going by the crest displayed alongside it, Prompto guessed military police. Might explain the lighter colour, too. _Focus on the colour, okay?_ Red and creamy white. Almost looked like an ambulance instead. It was worlds apart from the navy police cars that patrolled Insomnia’s streets, and strange, how much more menacing it became. Red and white, blood and milk. Scratches left by sharp spikes on skin. His mind, leaping from memory to troubled memory as it tried to distract him from the approaching reality.

            _Ardyn was going to make him go inside._

            _No._

His fidgeting turned to violent struggling as Ardyn reached for the door. He made some sound of denial, illegible and strained, more a child’s yell than the protestations of a grown man.

            Ardyn didn’t even need to tighten his grip; the troopers alongside him did all the work, kicking the back of Prompto’s legs sharply so he was forced to double over, whereupon one of them jammed the butt of its rifle into his stomach. He gasped out as his body turned slack from the shock, and this was more than enough to bring him under their full control once more.

            He wouldn’t sob, couldn’t let himself do that. Not at this stage. So he settled for heavy, hissed breaths instead; laboured enough to show his distaste, and hopefully deep enough to hide his fear. Didn’t hide the shaking in his limbs, though.

            This time, Ardyn allowed the Magitek Troopers to play the role of perpetrator, letting them be the ones to push him around while he released Prompto’s arm and jumped into the back of the van first. Again now, looking just like a saintly mural on the walls of that old sanctuary, he extended a hand warmly to Prompto. An invitation to step closer. Benevolence was written in every inch of his demeanour, and had the situation been different, had Prompto not know any better, he’d assume Ardyn was promising kindness.

            Not like he could take the hand that was offered anyway, with his own tied behind his back like that. He didn’t even nod to acknowledge the offer, he just resigned himself to being manhandled into the van by the troopers. It was hard to tell if Ardyn’s hard smirk indicated annoyance or humour, but he supposed he would find out soon enough.

            Ardyn didn’t touch him at all while he was pushed into one of the seats that lined the walls of the van, he simply took up space on the seat beside him and waited. His gun was extracted from his belt after he almost sat on it, and the trooper that took it spared a moment to examine the barrel, before carelessly chucking it to the other end of the cargo hold. Even without the gun pressed in to his side, the seat was far from comfortable; the metal frame bit into the underside of his thighs, and his arms were squashed between his back and the body of the vehicle.

            ‘Think you need to work on your hospitality a bit,’ Prompto muttered. ‘This can’t be the best the Empire has to offer.’ He let his eyes rove around the interior of the van, judging every spot he saw.

            Ardyn let out a laugh that was more a bark than anything.

            ‘Who would have known that killing one’s own father would spark such spirit?’

            He glowered.

            ‘Seriously?’ When Ardyn made no reply, he continued. ‘You knew exactly what would happen. Stop acting surprised.’

            ‘Oh, there’s no acting here. I’m not surprised, but rather proud of you, my boy.’

            Prompto was still reeling from the news about Aranea, the revelation it had been Ardyn all along. The anger was enough to make him clench his jaw, which made his next words difficult.

            ‘You staged everything.’

            ‘I care about you, Prompto. I only want what’s best.’

            Right. If only he could wipe that smug smile from his face.

            An armour-plated hand on each knee now, and his legs were spread apart. He winced, expecting the worst. Whatever the troopers were trying to do after that, they were evidently having some trouble with it, because Ardyn took over. Reaching one long-sleeved hand down between Prompto’s legs, he pulled up a section of a harness seatbelt.

            Prompto was pleasantly relieved, because he’d expected something a lot more visceral to happen. Seatbelts he could deal with. But then he realised that a five-way fastener like this meant Ardyn would be getting close to his abdomen anyway, and panic rose again.

            _Breathe in, Breathe out._

Ardyn’s hands reached in. A soft chuckle. Tightness around his hips.

            _Keep breathing. In. Out._

            Straps being pulled over his shoulders to join with the lower ones. Click of a mechanism being slotted into place.

            _You can get through this._

A final yank on the lower strap from Ardyn, pulling too tight the belt over his groin.

            ‘Fuck!’

            He had no time to adjust to the uncomfortable rubbing pressure; Ardyn clicked his fingers and the soldier in the driver’s seat kicked the engine into life. Sitting side-on as he was, the pull of forward movement left Prompto at the belt’s awkward mercy. Acute pain across his balls. The troopers occupying the seats opposite, impassive and unresponsive despite the van’s sharp turns. The clink of armour hitting armour in the inertia. Ardyn’s soft amused grunts as he made audible his discomfort.

            This wouldn’t be a short trip; he’d been captured far from the city centre, after all. Another lurch, another harsh tug at his groin. He started to hate corners.

            Prompto had already accepted it was hopeless, but he wasn’t expecting it to get much worse. Perhaps that was an oversight, because as they hit a smoother road - a highway, perhaps? - Ardyn reached out a hand, making no comment, not even so much as looking at him, and gently, softly, began to fondle his knee.

            He flinched.

            ‘Don’t touch me.’

            Ardyn’s grip increased, and now he turned voraciously to look him in the eye.

            ‘You’re in no position to make such demands.’

            He already knew that, but hearing Ardyn say it made it all the more unbearable, all the more hopeless. He wanted to cry, but settled for hissing out breath instead. _Keep sharp. Keep resilient. Despite what may happen._

            Basking in his silence awhile, Ardyn licked his lips, then continued his torment.

            ‘Oh, you are such fun to tease.’ Another tight squeeze on his knee, soft drag of a finger on his thigh, then he reached out to pull his hat off, freeing the feathered tufts of golden hair for a short moment before he grabbed a fistful and leaned in to bury his face atop the crown of his head. Even through the layers, there came the prickly sensation of stubble against his scalp. And surprising softness in between; the ghost of a kiss that preceded a whisper.

            ‘And now I have you, sweet soldier mine.’

            Prompto didn’t consider himself any of those things, but this time he kept his damn mouth shut.

 

 

Ardyn was taking him to Zegnautus Keep. Why he saw fit to tell him this, Prompto had no idea. But he didn’t much care. Not like he could do a thing with that information anyway.

            Zegnautus. That huge floating fortress, parked up at the centre of the city like some alien mothership. He only saw its huge size for what it was once he was dragged from the vehicle. Didn’t matter how little he resisted; the troopers treated him the same either way.

            It was strange, for the instant they left the vehicle, Ardyn ignored him entirely, taking the lead metres in front of them, long coat swishing about his feet as he strode forward, all confidence and poise. With the chaos and mess of the city around them, Prompto couldn’t help but think he seemed like the king of a crumbling castle. King of nothing. Fluttering newspapers and scraps of rubbish his only loyal subjects. Magitek Troopers didn’t count. Like Prompto, they had no choice. And with that in mind, how lonely it seemed, following the man up to the monolith amid all this decay.

 

 

He was escorted up the elevator, to a room rusted and grimy and littered with the kind of tools one might find in a garage like Hammerhead. Only, there were iron bars instead of doors. Metal frames and trolleys lined the walls, some holding oil cans, some draped in coils of chains. No sign of any place to sit, and it made him wonder if he’d been brought here for lack of a better holding cell at such short notice. Seemed rather out of the way for that. And besides, Ardyn would never be the sort to leave part of a plan unconsidered.

            ‘Your hospitality continues to amaze,’ Prompto murmured, emulating some of Ardyn’s own mocking tone. A poorly calculated display of sass, because Ardyn struck him hard across the back of his shoulders, catching his head in the process. He fell to his knees, wobbling forward precariously. Warmth around his midriff - Ardyn, clutching him steady while his own hands were tied. It was so friendly after the sudden harshness that he couldn’t suppress a shiver. Ardyn was not a kind man, and this was something he wasn’t about to forget in a hurry.

            ‘Have you something better in mind?’ He spoke closely now, breath hot on the tender skin behind his ear. In such a short space of time, a situation already so dangerous had grown to levels that stilled the words in Prompto’s throat. The question felt like a trap.

            ’N-no,’ he managed to say at length.

            ‘Well,’ Ardyn said, and his voice grew sharper, ‘I do.’ And he pushed him all the way to the ground. As Prompto turned his cheek to the side, instinctively trying to avoid falling flat on his face, Ardyn sidestepped around him in what little legroom the cell afforded, and soon there came the sounds of clinking. Chain links. His chest felt tight, all short of breath while his head set to spinning.

            _No. Keep control. Don’t give in just yet - he’s trying to intimidate you._

            So, closing his eyes, Prompto pressed his forehead into the ground to get some leverage, and pushed himself upward. But he never reached a seated position. No sooner had he initiated the action than Ardyn grabbed his hair, held him forward where he knelt. A sharp whistle and a Magitek Trooper entered, kept Prompto fast facing the ground while the sounds of clinking continued behind him. Ardyn was doing something with the chain, hard to tell what, exactly, but it sounded like it was being fastened somewhere above him.

            Then, rough hands pulling his cuffed wrists upward, shackling them to the end of the chain. A tug, and the sound of something slotting into place, then his arms were stretched upward and behind him, forcing him to stand. The metal ring of the cuffs cut into his skin, pressed painfully on the spur of his wrist bone, and he winced, standing up all the quicker. But once he was fully upright, Ardyn didn’t stop there. Whatever it was that the chain was attached to - likely a hook of some kind - he wrenched it higher still, until Prompto’s arms were twisted cruelly behind him, practically vertical. He ended up in a strange bent-over position, and immediately the strain was felt, tendons around his clavicle growing taut and forcing him up on his toes in an attempt to relieve it.

            ‘No, no, please…’ But his petitions were ignored.

            ‘This,’ Ardyn said from somewhere behind him, ‘is a most interesting technique. It certainly never fails to make you appreciate true hospitality.’

            The trooper let go its hold on the back of his head, and he grew panicked when he realised he couldn’t move his head up. The position his arms were in prevented it entirely - any inch of upward movement he attempted was met with a lancing pain between the shoulder blades, and a cracking in the neck. He swore harshly. He was stuck looking at the floor.

            ‘You know, some people like to do this for fun. Granted, they don’t hold position for longer than an hour at a time. You see, the risk of nerve damage is just far too great.’ Ardyn’s voice, seeping in like poison. A playful yank on the chain. Prompto gasped once more and tried to adjust his limbs, release as much pressure as possible. This felt like a particularly challenging workout stretch, but without the luxury of contracting the muscles afterwards. He didn’t need Ardyn to tell him about it - he was already well aware, from the amount of training he’d done at the gym in Insomnia, that extended periods in such a position would put undue strain on the ligaments in his shoulders. Hyperextend the joint. Maybe even lead to dislocation or tearing.

            He tried to pretend it was just a normal shoulder stretch. Sometimes, he enjoyed those. _Let your mind wander to that._

‘Did you not hear what I said?’

            ‘Uh… I, uh…’ In this position, it was harder to breathe than he expected. He decided to forego the rest of his response in favour of inhaling what dusty, stale air he could.

            ‘I said - some people like to do this for fun. What do you think about that?’

            He suddenly became horribly afraid he would say something wrong, something that would lead Ardyn to hitting him again, and that would most certainly cement his chances of getting a torn ligament. He hesitated.

            ‘Don’t lie to me, now,’ Ardyn said gently, and his words were laced with threat, and Prompto steeled himself, responded, spoke his mind.

            ‘I… think they’re… crazy.’ He forced the words out with each haggard exhale, and it took him a while, but he did it. Said it with distaste. He could see the shape of Ardyn’s coat, the lower part of his legs, his boots, from his own inverted position. The man was hovering just behind him still, idly shifting from foot to foot like he was waiting for a late train. But at his words the idle movement stopped, then Ardyn stepped in closer.

            ‘Now that’s a little judgemental, don’t you think?’

            A touch on his hips, hands sliding round to his crotch, grabbing just beneath the belt buckle. A hint at further molestation, nothing more, but it was enough to generate a visceral reaction.

            ‘No, no, no, don’t. Don’t!’ Prompto bucked away, rose on tiptoes even higher than he already was. His legs shook, the bones in the arches of his feet felt like they would snap with the strain of it, and panic was threatening to steal away the last of his breath from already-constricted lungs.

            Ardyn laughed.

            ‘It’s not whether I shall actually do anything,’ he purred, circling Prompto, walk round to the front, letting his hands travel from groin to side, dragging jacket fabric along with his fingers, tracing along his exposed armpit and chuckling again when it made him flinch. Still the roving touch continued, moving up to his face and ending with a slap on his cheek. Hair grabbed, neck pulled back painfully, and skin against his, soft lips on his cheek still smarting with pain. ‘It’s merely the threat that keeps you on your toes.’

            Prompto was grateful when his head was allowed to dangle back down toward the floor. The relief upon his vertebrae was immense. So overwhelming, in fact, that it generated tears in the corners of his eyes. Too much sensation, too much strain, and it was enough to make him yearn to just break down where he stood. Perhaps the most troubling thing of all was the fact that so far Ardyn had stolen no kiss, initiated no sexual action beyond those teasing touches through clothes. Made no sense, especially in such a position, with his body bent forwards and his rear all but on display. Was Ardyn just biding his time?

            Whatever the case, it caused him no small amount of stress, and he saw it as a tremendous wave lurking just beyond a sand bank, hindered from breaking in its full fury. All it would take was a shift in ocean bathymetry to have it racing toward the shore. And then Ardyn would be taking from him, smothering him, raping him once more, inside his mind and out. Events took shape in his mind’s eye, quite against his will, and formed a dissonance with the scene before him; the odd detachment Ardyn was currently showing him. It was disconcerting.

            Perhaps that was the point. To worry him.

            Perhaps. But then again, this could be more of what he now considered the real Ardyn, that sad and lonely figure he’d glimpsed toward the end of their time at the shrine. Maybe Ardyn was getting worse at hiding it around him.

            Unlikely. This was all a power game.

            He gritted his teeth, then stopped. It hurt too much to keep that up from where he hung.

            ‘Hush, don’t fret, my dear.’

            Ardyn patted him gently on his cheek now, and he flinched, uttered a small cry as skin touched reddened skin. He’d expected a harder slap. Both the stress position and the fatigue that was creeping up on him were effective blinkers, and beyond the small window of vision he had, he couldn’t see what Ardyn was doing in front of him, but after the hand withdrew he could hear shifting of fabric. Movement. Soon there was something soft and fibrous messing with his neckline, and he realised it was waves of hair. Ardyn had bent down, lowered his head to Prompto’s own, to whisper in his ear again.

            ‘Now, my dear, I must go to inform the Emperor of your arrival. He’s been simply dying to meet you, and I must tell him what I have planned.’

            With those parting words, he left, and all Prompto was able to see was the lower half of his legs walking calmly out of the cell, heavy iron bars clanging shut in his wake. The Magitek Troopers departed too – evidently, nobody feared he was enough of an escape artist to warrant a guard at the door. He was left, head bowed and arms raised, like some martyred saint in the semi-darkness, with only the overwhelming smell of motor oil and solvent for company.

            Minutes passed. His arms grew numb. So did his toes.

            _This is torture_ , he thought. _Real torture._ Sure, it didn’t feel like much now, but suddenly he was regretting having learned so much about human anatomy during his physical training. It wasn’t going to end well.

            In the silence of the cell, Ardyn’s earlier words came back to haunt him.

_They don’t hold position for longer than an hour at a time._

He made micro-adjustments to his position, trying to rotate his wrists, to roll his shoulders, to ensure nothing was pinched for too long.

            _The risk of nerve damage is just far too great._

It was going to take more than an hour to get an audience with Emperor Iedolas, he knew that much. No other reason for Ardyn to say those things. But he could do this. He had gotten through before, and he could do so again. Survive. Push on. _No matter how much he hurts you._

Prompto bit his lower lip, tried to keep the blood circulating in his hands, and set to waiting.

 

 


	3. Comfortably Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an audience with Emperor Aldercapt is held, and the stage for Ardyn's overture is set.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anybody else wonder exactly what happened with Iedolas prior to the whole Foras-daemon fight?
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter title is once more from Pink Floyd. Because Ardyn will surely _get him on his feet again._

After one hour, Prompto’s hands had gone numb. Ardyn kept him waiting for three. Plenty of opportunity to think and feel and second-guess everything. By the time he heard the cell door creak open once more, he had almost entirely convinced himself he wasn’t worth saving.

            How could he be fooled so easily? The promise of a warm bed, was that really all it took? He should have seen this coming. He should have stuck to the street shadows in Gralea.

            Heavy footsteps approaching, making dust swirl up into his downcast face. Swish of coat fabric, the printed pattern far too ostentatious for such a dank and dreary place. The sound of something weighty thumping down on the table nearby. Then more footsteps. The movement slowed to a stop before him, right in his blind zone; a calculated manoeuvre, for he couldn’t strain up to gauge Ardyn’s mood by his expression this way.

            ‘Ardyn.’ He greeted his captor with just that word, his name, calmly spoken and nothing more. It was the right move. Earned him a soft pat on the head.

            ‘Enjoying your stay?’ Voice like tar dripping through the stale air. Surface-level kindness masking the deeper threat.

            ‘Only as much as your other guests.’

            The sounds of the daemons, the imps in the cells adjacent to him, had not escaped his notice during those long hours. They had been docile, for the most part, and he couldn’t twist his head to see so it was impossible to tell for sure. But he’d traversed enough ancient ruins with Noctis to recognise the chittering.

            He was less scared than perhaps he should have been. If he thought back to Fociaugh Hollow, he could remember distinctly how he’d chirped like a terrified baby bird at the turn of every corner, how he’d jumped at every shadow. It was only a month back, but how things had changed. Not that he felt more resilient or anything, simply… anaesthetised. Not a human any longer but a product, like the other clones he’d encountered in the facility, just another brick in the wall. Given that over the weak creature he once thought he was, he honestly wasn’t sure what was better.

            Two firm taps as the toe of Ardyn’s boot met the ground. That much, he could see from his inverted position. Then a rushed intake of breath. Impatience? He stilled himself, and waited. When Ardyn next spoke, the theatrics were back, and it almost annoyed him. Like Ardyn needed to pretend with him.

            ‘The time has come, my boy. Your audience with misguided divinity lies ahead.’ The emphasis that Ardyn put on the word _divinity_ gave Prompto the impression he didn’t think highly of Emperor Aldercapt at all.

            Then, rustling of fabric, the harsh clang of metal. A tug on the apparatus above him. The chain fell slack and Prompto’s shoulders quickly followed. The ache that set in was immediate, shivering like ice-cream on a sensitive tooth, slicing through his shoulders to their very core, making the nerves all the way down to his fingertips thrum with the sudden injection of life. The drop was like a full-body exhale and he swooned into it, without choice nor charge over the matter.

            Ardyn didn’t let him fall, not all the way.

            As those broad hands pulled him up and steadied him vertically - a pose so horribly alien after those long hours spent with head bowed - Prompto felt a tickling at the edge of his senses. Like there was something occupying the corner of his eye. There it was, just out of direct sight, flickering like a shadow under candlelight when his eye twitched just so.

            He tried not to look down the length of the corridor. There was no tangible reason why, only the vague sense that to do so would be bad. Just as when the daemon tendrils had claimed him at the shrine, when Ardyn had shown his true form, or at least part of it. How he’d been too terrified to look that dark entity in the face. Here, that same lead-heavy fear returned, made the air hang heavy with miasma, and Prompto’s stomach twisted, intent on wringing itself out like a saturated washcloth.

            He must have been whimpering, because Ardyn shushed him with soft nothing-words, stroking his dirtied hair and patting down the collar of his winter coat, before moving south and slowly, calmly, unbuttoning it. Crooning delicately to dull the protest that followed.

            ‘We must make you presentable.’

            Behind him, the bag he’d placed on the table contained Prompto’s clothes, his proper Crownsguard outfit this time. Clothes he hadn’t seen since they parted ways at the shrine. And, if his senses were to be believed, freshly laundered too.

            Despite the situation, he wanted to laugh. The mental image of Ardyn waiting beside a tumble dryer was too fucking funny, too at odds with the scene.

            It proved incredibly difficult to contain his mirth. And he was, at first, grateful, because it was a fitting distraction for what was to come. Then Ardyn tapped him on the nose.

            ‘Come now, they were filthy. I’m not a savage.’ The words were sly enough but he was smiling too, and this was enough to make Prompto drop his grin.

            Then came a glorious few minutes in which the cuffs were unlocked and he stood without bindings or trappings as Ardyn dressed him. The man seemed to relish the activity, performing each action slowly and with reverence. As his head bent down, focussed on removing those too-tight jeans, Prompto considered running, and again his instinct - or whatever he ought to call that sense prickling the back of his neck - told him that this would be a foolish idea of the highest calibre, because whatever was waiting at the end of that corridor would be much less merciful than the monstrous man before him.

            Ardyn finished his degrading pantomime. Surveyed his captive with satisfaction, tracing fingertips down his now-bared arms. The chill in the room was more apparent to Prompto now without his snow gear on. Goosebumps raising on his skin. He wanted the coat back.

            The touch ended with his wrists - always, ever returning to that damn cursed place.   

            ‘Let’s fasten you up once more, shall we?’

            Reaffixing the handcuffs was not enough, however, because once he was done, Ardyn returned to the table. Picked up a thick metal collar, a small O-ring fixed near the hinge. It was the sort of thing one might find in a factory, or perhaps, more accurately, an abattoir.

            ‘Are you serious?’

            ‘Do you think I would be holding it if I wasn’t?’ Ardyn stepped forward, the severe contraption in hand. ‘I did say we must make you presentable.’

            ‘I - I’m not going to run…’

            ‘Oh, I know. I know. But our dear, sweet Emperor is unaware of that, and so, present you we must. He’s expecting to see a prisoner, after all.’

            _I don’t want you to do this. But then, you already know that._

Prompto settled for closing his eyes, biting down on his lip as Ardyn prised open the hinge and affixed the heavy thing around his neck. He twitched on contact, which made Ardyn tut. Displeasure. No. That was bad. _Still yourself._ He kept his eyes closed, ignoring the crushing metal pressing down on his collarbone as Ardyn finished locking the device in place, twisting it round until the O-ring was hanging at the back of his neck.

            ‘Ah. Wonderful.’

            Now Prompto opened his eyes. Got as close to a glower as he could without being obvious enough to cause a reaction. Ardyn drank in the sight, then paused, a finger held to pursed lips in thought.

            ‘No, something’s missing.’ And he moved to the shelving units, scanned them with deliberation before lifting a metal rod. It was the perfect size to fit through the O-ring, and it soon found its home between the collar and the cuffs, bracing his posture with strict steel, keeping him stood erect. _Something’s missing, my ass._ This was all clearly planned out. Prompto looked at Ardyn, eyebrows creasing upward as he tested the bonds. Metal hit metal and a strain spread out across his shoulders. He was held fast.

            ‘I ought to give you the chance to freshen up.’ A moment’s consideration. ‘Do you need the bathroom?’

            _Oh. Not this again._

            This was the most humiliating aspect of captivity, as if his experience at the shrine had not already made that abundantly clear to him. At the same time as the familiar humiliation rose, he felt angry, because Ardyn had waited until after shackling him to ask, making it needlessly awkward.

            ‘Just… Yeah, I… need a piss.’

            No point in lying. Not when Ardyn was offering him the chance. He raised an eyebrow in tentative hope. Ardyn knew how good he could be. Surely, as before, he’d give him the autonomy to relieve himself on his own?

            Out into the corridor he was led, bypassing the uncomfortable source of the miasma without incident and continuing along thin, cluttered passageways to a closet urinal.

            As it turned out, Ardyn did not give him the autonomy.

 

Many minutes down the line and Prompto knelt in quiet obeisance, waiting for the inspection to begin. The room he was in, it could hardly be called a throne room, although the strict metal at Prompto’s back prevented him from moving around to take it all in quite as much as he’d like. Ardyn had walked him to the end of the room, near the throne itself, and ordered him down on his knees. And now here he was, on display, feeling like an offertory prize while Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt scrutinised him.

            ‘So this is the one responsible for the destruction of Primo Impianto?’ A voice fey and lofty, and an odd intonation on the foreign words.

            He had to mean Facility One.

            Prompto kept his head bowed. An act of submission. May Iedolas have mercy.

            ‘Indeed it is.’ Ardyn strode in front of him, gesturing at his kowtowed form. The stage actor in him was returned, and out in full force. His every action, his every inflection; it was all performative.

            Iedolas swept closer, although Ardyn still occupied the space between them, his bulky coat somehow acting as a protective force. And Prompto got a hint of why, because even with head held low, he could see the colouration of the Emperor’s garb and it seemed oddly dirtied, impure, for something that he guessed should have been a lush, spotless white. There was something running dark like soot through its matrix. He could feel Iedolas’s gaze boring into him, and he didn’t want to look.

            ‘An escaped clone, you say? And a member of the Lucian Prince’s inner circle, at that?’

            ‘Yes, I can’t imagine how that could have happened.’ Ardyn was teasing him, but Iedolas seemed so self-absorbed that this went straight over his head. Not so with Prompto. Those chiding words struck him deep, because what if his entire rescue from the lab as a child, his placement in Insomnia, his association with Noctis, what if it had all been part of Ardyn’s plan from the start? An insidious thought that, once present, refused to shift, and he felt its leaden weight sink to the bottom of his stomach, anchoring him to the floor like another shackle being added.

            ‘It’s unbelievable…’ Again, Iedolas shifted closer, a wild menace radiating, and Ardyn was forced to concede his position, standing aside ever so slightly as the unhinged Emperor shuffled up to get a keener look at Prompto. ‘That a malfunctioning unit such as this would prove capable, not just of such wanton destruction but of murdering our research minister in such a fashion… Mm, unbelievable… Look at me, creature.’ Iedolas didn’t touch him, simply clicked his fingers. It was a relief compared to dealing with Ardyn, and he got the impression this man was so used to ordering others around without having to sully his fingers that it simply would never occur to him to grasp Prompto’s chin and force him to look up, the way Ardyn so often did.

            But thoughts of relief didn’t last for long. Iedolas did not hold the same level of attraction toward him that Ardyn seemed to, so perhaps he was the more dangerous one.

            At first Prompto didn’t meet the Emperor’s gaze. All it took was a short laugh from Ardyn to make him do so, and it was mostly out of belligerence. And when he did, the first thing that struck him was how faraway his eyes looked, like he was caught between two different realities.

            The second thing that struck him was the distortion. Disfigured flesh clinging to limbs that protruded unnaturally from his regal dress like mannequin armatures poking through an ill-fitting doll’s outfit. Thick liquid ooze seeping from the spaces between.

            The hell was wrong with the man’s body?

            He spent a second in pure revulsion before he clocked it. It was just like how Verstael had turned before he’d shot him. Iedolas was becoming a daemon, there were no two ways about it.

            Another one of Ardyn’s influences, no doubt.

            And sure enough, while he looked on, trying not to show his horror too plainly, there Ardyn stood, enjoying the show in the background. That was, until the Emperor made his next move.

            ‘Such an abhorrent, accursed creature,’ Iedolas muttered, and Prompto felt a flush - _actually felt a flush of warmth -_ as he saw Ardyn’s eyes narrow behind him. Again, that sense of warped pride. How fucked up. Security was the last thing he should have been feeling, and yet there it was. He even felt safe enough under Ardyn’s charge to glower a little at the enemy Emperor, although he said nothing in response. No need to rise to the bait. He got the feeling Ardyn was about to do that for him anyway.

            Iedolas squinted down at him.

            ‘So what should we do with this terrorist, this _traitor?’_

            Ardyn opened his mouth to speak, but Iedolas was off in his own thoughts, running a conversation in his mind entirely independently of reality. He spoke over Ardyn, all fanciful and musing.

            ‘Can we not simply torture it for information on the Lucian Prince?’

            At this, Prompto could not prevent a small protest escaping his throat. A fervent, pleading ‘No.’ It sounded utterly pathetic in the cold, resonant room, and his cheeks flushed.

            ‘Oh, it speaks?’ Iedolas seemed surprised, and then angry. Like he might finally break from his airs and resort to hitting him. And indeed, his disfigured arm was twitching impatiently. ‘It seems unrepentant of its crimes. Perhaps it is better to simply kill it.’

            ‘Ah…’ Here, Ardyn stepped forward. He raised a hand, and with a flourish of his fingers, all activity slowed to a stop. Every mote of dust suspended in the air, every inch of the throne’s drapery stopped in mid-waft. The draft in the cold room ground to a halt, and it suddenly felt like a hot Altissian summer’s day, with still air and not a cloud in the sky. Iedolas Aldercapt’s face was frozen in a twisted grimace, and around him the world seemed distorted, a miasma laying over everything, all purple and black like a bruise. What kind of magic was this?

            During the shift, Prompto became acutely aware of the tightness in his body. Already so stiff and aching from kneeling on hard stone with the rigid metal bracing his spine upright, now he was beset by the tug of gravity, like miniature planets were springing up in the air around him, exerting their own magnetic pull. Felt like he was being torn apart with the gentlest yet most immovable force, and he began counting down in his head, hoping this horrific audience would end soon.

            In the stillness of the no-space that now surrounded them, Ardyn walked towards him, all the fury and certainty of an unavoidable storm in the way he moved. There, that possessive gaze again. Protective. And it was strange, to see all the power of the storm being put on the defensive here, in his favour.

            He had been expecting ridicule from both sides. But this? This felt awful.

            That gaze, as he met it, turned so kind, and it sparked tears in his eyes. Some of that precious water spilled over as Ardyn extended a hand to stroke his cheek, thumbing over his lower lip, a trembling in the digit that made clear how uncharacteristically on edge he was.

            ‘Don’t listen to him, pet.’ A breath in, then out, while the dark haze gathered in closer between them. ‘The only one who ought say such things to you is me.’

            Prompto stared up at Ardyn, too uncertain, too scared to know what to say. He had seen a nature documentary once, where a small seal had been tossed between two vying orcas, both whales insistent on being the one to deliver the killing blow. It had taken hours for the poor thing to die, and the horror had been painted on the inside of his eyelids for many years afterwards.

            What exactly was the difference, here?

            Ardyn stopped caressing his lips, and took a moment to slip a finger inside the warm cavity of Prompto’s mouth, delving in to the back of his throat. It was almost enough to make Prompto gag, and he found resistance against the cruel metal rod and collar almost immediately. Ardyn pressed in just a little further, enough to make a point. It was a shallow, crude way to gain back some control, and it was telling that Ardyn had to resort to stopping time in order to do it. Prompto thought back to Luna, and failed to understand why Ardyn didn’t simply get rid of the problem entirely, kill Iedolas where he stood. There had to be some deeper game at play here.

            ‘How dare he,’ Ardyn murmured, frayed hair glossing over his tired eyes as he shook his head irreverently. ‘Threaten you like that. It interferes with my plans, you know.’ He withdrew his finger from Prompto’s mouth, streaked the excess saliva across his cheek. ‘But he won’t hurt you. You know why, don’t you, Prompto?’

            Prompto thought back to the orcas. Shivered.

            _Better the devil you know_.

            He nodded, and Ardyn’s lips met his with a crushing kiss. It didn’t last long, just enough to reassert his dominance. Prompto thought about Iedolas – _better simply to kill it –_ and chose to press into the kiss, let his mouth open up for use. His unforgiving brain could punish him for this treachery later, once the threat was out of the way.

            ‘Good boy.’

            Ardyn swept back and the dark mist receded, along with the gravitational pull. As the world righted itself, as the draft in the room started to blow once more, Iedolas staggered through the last few frames of his grimace, and finished up with a sour upturned look of disgust.

            Now Ardyn wasted no time in circling behind Iedolas, all charm and eloquence, the very definition of the snake in the Garden of Eden.

            ‘Your dear Imperial Majesty, killing him shall not be necessary.’

            ‘Oh? Illuminate me, Chancellor.’

            Ardyn swelled triumphantly, ready to launch back into theatre mode. Expressive hands once again gaining control of the stage, finding his flow.

            ‘You will be most interested to know that this MT has within its body the key to controlling the spread of the Scourge virus.’

            A wiry grey eyebrow arched upwards. Ardyn continued.

            ‘Since Verstael is, regrettably, dead, it falls to me to continue his research. And this specimen before you just so happens to be of the pre-0600 stock.’ He fixed the Emperor with an acid gaze. ‘Not a malfunctioning unit, but rather, the key to our very survival. Material harvested - blood and suchlike - could be the key to helping us control the spread of the pathogen. Master the benefits while avoiding the curses.’

            As he spoke, Iedolas had begun fingering the protrusion along his shoulder with increasing worry.

            ‘I see. And would I still be able to retain my strength and my…. divinity?’

            A small curl of Ardyn’s lip as this last word was spoken. But he reined in his tongue, and instead layered honey on the scene.

            ‘Absolutely, Your Majesty, and am I not a man of my word? Of course, I will need unlimited access to this unit for the… foreseeable future. No interruptions.’

            ‘Yes, yes. As you wish. Just - take this accursed thing away.’

            There it was again. That word. _Accursed._ Again, the tension rose in the air, taut as a tightrope wire and Prompto simply didn’t understand how Iedolas wasn’t picking up on Ardyn’s veiled animosity.

            ‘Your Majesty. I can guarantee you, it will be the last time you have to set eyes on this unit.’ Ardyn swung in close and spoke slow and dangerous, frenetic fingers unfurling before Iedolas’s face, so close, so close to touching but not quite making it that far. It was a gesture of offertory, but the intent beneath it was not lost on Prompto. A sweet smile disguised as an insult. A farewell loaded with ill-portent. Ardyn was fully intending to see the Emperor destroyed.

 

 

On the way back to the laboratory wing of the keep, Ardyn let him use the bathroom once more, untying him for the purpose and giving him free reign of the cubicle, to his intense relief. For some reason he didn’t see fit to restrain him on the way back to the cell, although he left the heavy collar on. Probably to make a point. Everything was to make a point, when it came to Ardyn.

            He followed quietly. Little point in running - his limbs were fatigued and stiff and he was hampered by the weight of the collar, and besides, they were joined now by a small cadre of Magitek Troopers. As before, in the inn, he wouldn’t get that far.

            Back to the grime of the cell, and here he wanted so badly to stretch out his neck. He was only able to roll it a couple inches either way before meeting metal. Gods, how he longed for a soft bed. A bath. Real, genuine warmth.

            He wasn’t going to get anything so far-fetched here. But at the bare minimum, he didn’t want to be forced on his knees again. He didn’t want to be twisted and contorted into another stress position. And above all, he wanted to appear acquiescent, to give some sign he knew and accepted he was at Ardyn’s mercy.

            So he just sat on the floor.

            This seemed to please Ardyn, because he fell into a crouch in front of him, forearms resting on knees, head cocked like a concerned owner looking at a pet they cared for tremendously. One hand extended to raise Prompto’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet.

            ‘You look like you have questions. Care to share?’

            Prompto would have gulped, had it not been for the collar.

            ‘Harvesting material. Wha-what does that mean?’ He didn’t see the point in avoiding asking. Ardyn laughed hollowly.

            ‘Scared, are we?’ A light trace across his skin. ‘You needn’t be. I will take some of your blood, but only enough to let our good friend Iedolas drink his troubles away. You see, he fears the ugly side of daemonification, and yet he craves the power the Scourge lends him.’

            ‘He wants to drink my blood?’ Prompto couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice. This sounded like a bad vampire film.

            Another bark of a laugh.

            ‘Indeed he does. So far he has fervently tried everything to stop the spread of the nasty side effects of his new nativity.’

            ‘That’s… not going to work.’

            ‘Oh, I know. Clever boy. He’s going to die alone and daemonified. Your blood won’t save him. However, I consider his exceptional drive to survive a blessing. I want to avoid unnecessary confrontations.’ Ardyn dropped forward from a crouch to a kneel, closing the fleeting inches between them until, with the barest of effort, he would be able to push Prompto onto his back and tower over him. He didn’t. He simply let the tension fester. ‘Much more fun to have the fool give me permission, when it comes to you. He will do just about anything to extend his own reach in this world. Now…’

            Prompto could sense what was going to happen long before it did. He could have cried but somehow he didn’t. Simply watched as Ardyn, face now mere inches from his own, gazed into his soul from those warm autumn-leaf eyes and preceded the eventual kiss with a phrase that wormed its way deep into his mind.

            ‘How will it feel, knowing everything that will take place within these four walls will be officially sanctioned by none other than the Emperor himself?’


	4. One Slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Prompto is given a choice, and Ardyn sees fit to return his weapon, although perhaps not in the manner one would expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene has been rolling around in my head for a while. I'm sorry.
> 
> Again, title is from another song by Pink Floyd.

‘So perhaps you’d like to tell me why you’re sitting on the floor? Are you tired?’ Ardyn’s drawl cut like barbed wire. The cell, with its rust and its desiccation, seemed to shrink and Prompto wished the walls would swallow him. Wished he would wake up some place far away from the smell of motor oil and metal filings. On the train. In the snow. Didn’t matter where, just not here. He avoided Ardyn’s gaze, stared down at the floor as he responded.

            ‘I don’t have to be.’ _If you don’t want me to be._

            A quick sigh, and Ardyn repeated the question. ‘Are you tired?’

            ‘Yes.’

            ‘My dear Prompto, that’s because you’ve been trying your best. Truly. But now you find yourself faced with a choice.’

            ‘What choice?’ He spoke hesitantly.

            ‘How would you like to continue your stay in a more appropriate locale?’

            ‘What does that mean?’

            ‘Not much. A soft bed, for a start.’

            _And your hands round my waist, probably._

He didn’t trust it. So he said nothing.

            ‘The proviso, of course, is that you must come with me. Hurry now. Your time is running out.’

            Still Prompto said nothing. He couldn’t make up his damn mind.

            ‘Suit yourself.’

            Ardyn reached for the cuffs. The rickety metal table rattled as he lifted them off it, and a spare length of chain, displaced from its precarious position, slithered off the table with a raucous sound. It hit Prompto’s ears with all the subtlety of a freight train.

            He didn’t want the stress position again. How would he hold a gun, how would he fight if his nerves were damaged beyond repair? For him to be rescued, he had to be worth rescuing, right?

            ‘No, wait…’

            A smile from Ardyn and nothing more. The cuffs dangled between finger and thumb as he waited for Prompto to continue.

            Deep breath. _Come on. You can do this._

            ‘I… I’ll go with you. Okay?’

            ‘Come, then.’ A wide spread of the arms, a gesture beckoning him in to the dark folds of his coat. Prompto’s chest tightened. His mind, oscillating between _you can do this_ and _don’t you fucking dare take another step closer to him._ Neither side of his mind was winning and it left him in limbo.

            He was evidently taking too long to deliberate, because Ardyn clicked his tongue. ‘Come here, Prompto.’ And as before, that voice was like a deep, dark blanket, so easy to sink into. A self-assured, commanding tone that tugged at some nerve buried far below the skin, pulled him in like a magnet. After what he’d seen in the Magitek facility, just how much of this was mental conditioning from his childhood? Much as it disturbed him, he preferred the thought that it was, for then he could shed some of the guilt over what he was about to do.

            Time was running out. The air inside the cell grew still, and in those final, decisive seconds he responded to the tug and leaned forward on his knees. Ardyn welcomed him with open arms, gave him the sort of embrace he’d expect from a lover long separated. Hands clasping his head to his breast, a desperation to the touch as they sank in to each other on the dust-coated floor. An embrace so tight he choked a fraction as the metal collar dug into his throat. Ardyn couldn’t stop touching him, as though he was showing off to the Emperor who wasn’t there - _this one is mine -_ and Prompto gritted his teeth, forced his shoulders to relax. _There. Calm. Just do it, and wait to be saved. Hold out until Noct gets here._

            As he gave himself up to the embrace, he heard breath quicken against his ear.

            ‘Didn’t take you long to decide, did it?’

            Wait. Had he chosen wrong? Could Ardyn hear his thoughts? He started to say something, to refute it, then stopped. Ardyn continued.

            ‘I’d love to tell you that submission is the price of comfort, but we both know that really isn’t true.’

            As he suspected. Ardyn was never intending to treat him well.

            Some heavy, shapeless emotion crashed over him and he felt about as significant as a pebble, pushed up the beach at high tide. Didn’t matter how hard he tried to please, he’d always end up moved by a force far greater than himself, and the realisation that he wouldn’t be able to buy kindness from Ardyn was a cold one.

            Prompto raised his head, and as he did so there was a small voice at the back of his head, a little warning flashing up, telling him that this might just be Ardyn’s intention, to get him to fight, to rebel, to incite him.

            Could be. But the reverse could also be true. Godsdamn, how he detested guessing, being left between two states like this. He shrugged off the worry, and made his decision. Struggled out of Ardyn’s grip and backed away onto his heels.

            ‘You lied?’ Gods, he sounded so pathetic. He edged backward ever further on the ground, knocking the worktable to his right, dimly noting that Ardyn hadn’t even attempted to bring him under control. That should have been a warning sign. And now, Ardyn’s face, painted in mock astonishment.

            ‘How could you say such a thing? I merely tried to test your resolve.’ Eyes narrowed, mouth curled back into that sinister smile. ‘So in fact, I think it was you who lied.’

            He’d been caught out.

            _Shit._

 _‘_ I… I didn’t mean…’ And then, anger. ‘You think I want any of this?’

            Eyebrows angled sharp in fury. Ardyn raised a hand as if to strike, but it ended in a grab of the wrist and he pushed Prompto backward into a precarious position, on the edge of toppling over, and Prompto yelled with the shock of it. But Ardyn didn’t stop twisting his wrist back, twisting to the point of pain while the other hand grabbed his side, just above the belt where the skin was tender. No fat there to speak of, so it went straight to jutting hipbone and abdominal muscle, and when Ardyn gripped, he gripped _hard_. Bruising, pinching, drawing out harried screams.

            ‘You don’t want any of this? Of course you don’t want it. None of us wanted any of this!’

            He tried to avoid sinking down against the ground, to stop his back touching the cold surface. Because then he’d be totally at his mercy. So he resisted. He tried to claw Ardyn away from him with his free hand but for all the man moved, it was as effective as hitting a brick wall.

            ‘Please! It - it hurts!’

            That made Ardyn pinch harder. A grim laugh for a second that spilled back down into a grunt of anger.

            His biceps weren’t strong enough to withstand the force. A painful twinge as the tendons connecting them to bone caught on the spur of his shoulder, and he folded down toward the ground, the back of his head thudding dully on contact.

            Ardyn liked him struggling, that much was clear in the joyous smile. He let Prompto work himself up into a frenzy, just to watch. Then he held him against the ground, all but sitting on him, and breathed out a delicious sigh. In the exhale, the room seemed to dim by a few degrees, the lights flicker.

            Then, right beside Prompto, appearing in a flash like it has just glitched into the scene from nowhere, was that presence from the hallway. Dark tendrils at the edges of his vision again. That creature, that presence, was laying down next to him on the floor, as a partner would in bed. An odd sound like purring or clicking. A dip in the weight of the air like a gravity well, and a sickly smell like saltwater taffy. It was the same thing from the shrine, he knew it. The creature that had come out of Ardyn’s very core, abused his mouth, fed him dark matter to keep him going through the snow. Feeling it there again, so close and so dangerous, sent pure, unadulterated fear slicing into him.

            _Don’t look, don’t look._

Ardyn was shouting, and he sounded for a second like Gladio, all wild, immature rage. The lack of personal restraint was unlike him. Like at the altar. The hell was going on inside the man’s head?

To stop himself giving in to temptation and looking at the shadow laying beside him, he looked up at Ardyn instead. Tried to say sorry. It didn’t go down well.

            ‘Why don’t you learn your lessons?’

            _I don’t understand what this lesson is._

            Then something was whispering at his ear, and it wasn’t Ardyn.

_‘Liker du det?’_

The creature spoke like the scratch of bark across skin, like rasping fingers stroking through mud.

            Ardyn wasn’t even reacting to its presence.

            Was he imagining it?

_‘Ikke se på meg. Ikke se på skyggene. Ellers må vi sluke deg.’_

What was it saying?

            Fear still prickled at his neck, and the tension was unbearable. He couldn’t stand not knowing.

            And so he looked. He couldn’t stop himself. Turned around and looked straight into its face.

            Sallow, pale eyes like dying light bulbs peered wide and curious within a mud-black head. Something gnarled and twisted like roots, like half-decayed plant matter, shrouded its form, and everywhere was dripping sickly dark tar. The creature looked like it had crawled its way out of a peat bog, or out of the centre of the earth, he couldn’t decide which. It was soil and woodsmoke and sulfur, it was a black hole and he was caught in its orbit.

            He screamed, and somewhere up above he heard Ardyn seethe.

            The creature reached out to him with a humanoid limb, and every sense in Prompto’s body told him this thing knew no mercy. Around the limb crawled those tendrils, the tentacles he remembered from the shrine. He should have felt disgust. He should have felt anger.

            All he felt was fear.

            He bucked and struggled, until something hard collided with his chin and he reeled back abruptly.

 

The next few seconds were a blur before his eyes. He wondered if he had blacked out, but it didn’t feel like it, although his jaw radiated pain, as did the back of his head where it had hit the floor. The collar dug into the nape of his neck and he was sure it was bruised. He was seeing double, the edges of everything rocking gently as if suspended in some thick solution. Ardyn was shifting, straddling him as he searched for something on the shelves behind him.

            The shadowy creature was nowhere to be seen, but its presence hadn’t left the room. He tried to focus, and when Ardyn turned back to face him, search efforts having come up fruitless, he saw the creature mirrored at his side for a flash of a second before it shifted inches to the right and merged, became one with Ardyn. Like crossing and uncrossing the eyes, the two forms coalesced until only one outline remained. Now, those bright irises yellowed even more intensely, and the black ichor began to seep from Ardyn’s skin as it had before, at the shrine. He seemed calm, scarily so.

            _Pleased to meet you, finally,_ Prompto thought. Out of all the sins that Ardyn had been forced to eat at the request of Bahamut, he got the feeling that this one, this creature of mud and swamps and dark salt water, was the first. The original. The core of the fallen healer’s soul. He had never seen Ardyn more naked than this.

            How strange, the calmness that settled over the room like a lullaby. It didn’t stop Prompto’s fear from bristling, but it blanketed everything, and he could feel its drag, like the numbing poison secreted from a predatory insect.

            The creature that both was Ardyn and wasn’t sighed, one hand meeting his own forehead and rubbing, kneading the tired skin there. When he spoke he sounded utterly exasperated.

            ‘Do you remember our little conversation, back at the sanctuary?’

            ‘Which one?’ He watched him warily. Out of the cell or no, he was back to feeling like a caged animal.

            ‘While we lay together on the bed. And you asked me, “Oh, Ardyn, what would you do if I ceased to be so good?” And I told you, well now, if that were the case then I would have to kill you. But first… First, I would use you to your last.’

            Prompto didn’t appreciate the mimicry of his own voice one iota. But with the words that followed, what started out as a glare dissolved into what must have been a look of fright, for Ardyn clapped his hands together with delight.

            ‘There, now. That spark in your eye. You do remember after all.’

            How could he not? That night spent shackled to the bed was still burned on his retinas, the image seared sharp at the edges, and it was enough to bring back the pain in his wrist, his hand, in the digits that had been so cruelly injured at the man’s whim. Despite the elixirs and potions, despite the curative force of Ardyn’s dark magic, there hadn’t been enough time for it to heal properly, and little memories made it ache like ice cream gone straight to the tooth.

            ‘Please, Ardyn, I… I didn’t mean anything bad. You _know_ that, you know I didn’t…’

            ‘And yet you’ll do anything just to get a bit of comfort.’ Ardyn tutted. ‘I was never afforded that luxury.’

            ‘I’m sorry,’ he started to say. What was he apologising for? Was he really sorry that he wanted nice things? Was that so bad?

            ‘Shh. We’ll fix it. Don’t you worry. You’ve come such a long way, I’m hardly going to give up on you now.’ Ardyn leaned over him, the fire back in his eyes. For a second, his face melted into Aranea’s and she murmured, soft and low and terribly amused, the same phrase she’d said upon parting. ‘The boy becomes a man.’

            A small cry escaped Prompto’s throat because it was so _real_ , seeing her face there before him. It hurt. Then back to Ardyn again. Grey hair shifting to rich mahogany, subtle as voile curtains drifting in a light breeze. Lips parted into a wry smile as he spoke again. ‘The boy must die for the man to live.’

            Prompto’s mouth fell open. His mind raced through a million thoughts that all ended with _he can’t mean that literally… can he?_

            A chuckle, a hesitation that allowed Prompto more space to worry before Ardyn continued. ‘Well, we’re going to do something about that right now. I was going to wait, but there’s little point in that.’

            One hand slammed down over Prompto’s face, pushed him into the floor, while the other raised, effervescent in its movements as silvery red sparks flickered, focused to a point in the air above his fingertips, drawing an object out of the void. Prompto’s gun, summoned from the Armiger.

            ‘No, no, no…’ His protests were muffled against the broad palm smothering him.

            Ardyn looked solemn now, and this was bad. This was dangerous. For a moment all Prompto could hear was his own breath, grown rapid with fear. And then he was babbling. Eyes smarting with tears as Ardyn pointed the gun at his face, hand leaving his mouth to grasp his wrists together in a tight hold. Then, a cold trickling sensation as dark tendrils wrapped around his body. Hardly a need for rope to restrain him while that daemon was to hand.

            He was still muttering, pleading, crying, when Ardyn forced the gun into his mouth.

            His entire body, vibrating softly in pure fright.

            Eyes wide as lips parted to take in cold metal with barely a question. Not fool enough to resist when it was this close. No choice.

            He had to work incredibly hard to control his gag reflex, as Ardyn seemed intent on pushing the barrel right to the back of his throat. The taste of rust on his tongue.

            Now Ardyn manoeuvred his hands upward, folding them round the grip. He placed Prompto’s index finger not on the trigger guard but on the trigger itself, crooning soft shushing noises to stop his finger trembling. It wasn’t working. Prompto was stricken; eyes almost crossed staring down the barrel before him, thinking how it wouldn’t take much, just a tremble too far and there, his brains would be splayed out on the grimy cell floor for Noctis to find.

            _No, please!_

His eyes tried to convey what his mouth could not.

            The daemonic tendrils caressing his body moved up to join Ardyn’s hands, twisting round his own, and affixing his grip to the gun in the tightest of ties. Again, no need for rope.

            Ardyn whispered, hot and sweet against his neck, and Prompto wished desperately he wouldn’t press so close, not when his head knocked the gun like so.     

            ‘Should you choose to pull the trigger, I will revive you as a daemon. Like father, like son. I will do it as many times as it takes. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?’

            Prompto’s nostrils flared, and he shook his head as much as he was able without shifting his precarious position too much. Micro-movements. As clear a response as he could make it.

            ‘Mm. Good.’

            Another brush against his neck, knocking his jawline awkwardly. Sticky sensation of daemonic ooze coating his skin. With the tension pulling him in every direction, Prompto wondered if he would die from a heart attack instead. He whimpered, the sound distorted and muffled around the thick metal.

            Now Ardyn leaned back, content to watch the limbs of his daemonic counterpart hold him fast. Moments of unabashed admiration, then he opened his mouth and softly, calmly, began to speak.

            ‘I ought to thank Eos for this, our divine collision. It’s more than mere happenstance.’

            Hands travelled down to his belt, began to gently unbuckle it, and toy at his zipper. Eyes staring into his so fondly, he’d be forgiven for thinking this was a schoolyard confession of love. But he knew where this was going. Ardyn was near on in a trance, all heady and high off his own passion, and it dawned on Prompto that this passion, the passion of an unwilling martyr, was what really got him off. Ardyn finished with the zipper, cinched down his pants and teased along his shaft, gaze fixated on his eyes all the while.

            ‘Infinity has many faces, and I see them all tonight in you. Now, stay still. We wouldn’t want to slip.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone can name the mythological creature at the core of Ardyn's soul, you'll make me very happy.


	5. Our Currency is Flesh and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy must die for the man to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title taken from The Dogs of War, again from the Floyd
> 
> This chapter is heavy. Just a heads-up.

Maybe the gun wasn’t even loaded.

            Maybe the gun was as empty as he was.

            It made Prompto sick to the stomach, to think he hoped Ardyn was merely messing with him - that Ardyn had found a way to make him _want_ that - but it was the far better alternative. He sobbed into the barrel, nose running with tears and snot, just holding out, holding out for the end as his recurring nightmare unfolded before his eyes. Ardyn, dominating him, stroking him into hardness while wearing that divine, serene expression that caused such dissonance with the scene. He was scared of that calm expression, so scared he longed to hear Ardyn laugh again, because there was a relative safety in that simple act. He was scared of his own immediate future, being brought face to face with his own mortality staring him down in cool gunmetal grey. And he was scared of his own memories, flashes of scenes hitting his mind in rapid succession, so intrusive, so unwanted, making it painfully obvious with each passing second that this act was merely a repeat of all the times it had happened before.

            Prompto wanted so badly to close his eyes. The stroking felt good, the alternation of skin and fabric from those fingerless gloves creating a frisson that made him want to buck up into Ardyn’s touch. And that guilt was strong enough to make him beg for a stop to the entire thing. Even went so far as making him want to die.

            He could just do it now, have it all be over. Just a small press of the finger. Then he wouldn’t have to look, to _feel_ any longer. That small press, that big decision hovering under his quaking fingertip could change everything.

            Again, the temptation to cry, because he knew what would happen if that were the case. Ardyn would merely revive him. _As many times as necessary._

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

            And so, he fell slack against the touch. No longer all spark like mercury, but inert like silver. Resistant to corrosion, but if only.

            Eventually Ardyn seemed to decide he was stimulated enough, because his hands stroked down and away from his erect cock, leaving it trembling as he teased at the inside of his thighs. Each light touch threatened to tickle, made him squirm. But he continued on, hands travelling over the ruched-up jeans gathered around Prompto’s knees, then joining in unison with those of his unholy daemon, grabbing each of Prompto’s ankles, holding firm around his boots and manoeuvring his legs up to his chest, exposing his rear. More tendrils held him in place, lassoed under his knees and round his midriff, and Ardyn used the moment to slip down and cup a buttock tenderly. Far too tenderly for the position he was in.

            Why touch him like this? _This wasn’t love._

            Prompto flinched, uttered muffled cries from behind his humiliating gag, fear washing his insides cold with the thought it might be enough to make him pull the trigger by accident. He didn’t doubt for a second that Ardyn would attempt to orchestrate such a situation.

            Maybe it was possible he was just going to turn him into a daemon anyway. It was already clear enough that whatever he’d been attempting to reach at the shrine hadn’t worked out for him. And now, everything Ardyn had done to him since arriving in Gralea had just been another way of stringing him along. Maybe becoming a daemon was just something that was scripted to happen when Ardyn finally tired of him.

            So then, there had to be more he could do to endear himself, to ensure that never happened.

            Always came back to that, didn’t it? Why did he struggle so much to make people like him? Why did he struggle to fit in?

            Another grab of his tender flesh, and he flinched again. His tongue lay trapped beneath the barrel, so all that came out was an embarrassing distorted noise. Nowhere near enough room to form proper words. Hardly even enough room to breathe, and what if he cried too much and blocked his nose? What if he passed out or died choking on his own damn gun as a result?

            Ardyn was a fucking psychopath.

            A shadow reaching forward and the sound of tin clinking brought Prompto back to attention, made him realise he’d been drifting off. The hand on his buttock let go its grip and he felt his body shunted backward until his head bumped softly against the shelving unit. Ardyn only broke his gaze for a moment, leaning in to retrieve a container of… something… from the small roller table beside them. A viscous sloshing sound. Gloopy. Unpleasant.

            When the lid was popped, pirouetting on the concrete in a decaying clang, when the tin was turned round, when Ardyn’s gloves were removed to allow bare fingers to scoop out whatever material was inside, Prompto finally was able to focus on the logo.

            Junon gear lubricant.

_Holy hell._

            Then, a cold, wet sensation against his ass.

            Ardyn’s eyes sparked bright like a lit fuse when he saw that he understood. He was fucking serious about this, wasn’t he? He was going to use _machine lubricant_ on him. He was going to…

            _Fuck._

            Prompto’s hands shook and he had to resort to snorting breaths harshly through his nose to try and master his nerves. This shit was not intended for use on anything other than… For anything other than…

            _Just say it._

Machines.

            ‘Fitting, no?’ Of course, Ardyn had placed his exact thoughts. A smirk, satisfied and self-assured, accompanied the taunt. A lean in, and a rub of fingertips against his hole. The smirk intensified into a cruel grin and in a swift, punishing movement, his fingers drove in. Had Prompto not had his mouth stuffed with steel, he would have yelped from the shock. Instead he moaned into the metal, sniffing and shivering and then bucking as Ardyn hooked his fingers into a tight curl on the outward stroke, driving against his prostate with merciless precision. Just a few seconds of pleasure before the fingers retracted, only to be replaced by something thicker. The oily lubricant between their flesh made it almost arousing.

            Did Ardyn not mind that stuff coating his dick?        

            Prompto looked once more at the black ichor seeping from the man’s pores and thought _probably not._

            Now Ardyn pressed the head of his cock against his asshole, pushing, teasing the tip in. Even with lubricant, this proved difficult. A gun to the face didn’t exactly do much for loosening up the muscles.

            ‘Oh dear… This is going to hurt.’

            Prompto breathed with as much measure as he could manage, so close to losing it to panic yet so determined not to let that happen. He could weather it. Just like before. Never mind that the difficulty had increased, come _on,_ just _get through._

            A satisfied grunt accompanied the eventual thrust that saw to all of Ardyn’s length being buried deep inside him. Along with that came an agonising, searing pain. Friction made the lubricant irritate the tender lining of his inner walls, and he was burning. He was not prepared enough. He was so far from ready. This was agony.

            He couldn’t even clench his fists or grit his teeth to get through the pain, occupied as they were by the gun stuffed down his throat. And as Ardyn sighed in deep-seated satisfaction and began to move back and forth inside him, tearing at tender skin that was no doubt bleeding by now, he wondered, _Gods,_ _why?_

            Why, when he had made it so far? He’d gotten through the snowbound factory, faced down his past, made it all the way to Gralea. So why was this happening again? Dashing his hopes, sending him back into the nightmare no matter how far he ran. It always seemed to catch up.

            As Ardyn picked up the pace, cock stretching his insides all the more to accommodate his girth, Prompto tried to adjust to the faster motion. He felt his legs bob uselessly in the air, ankles unbound by daemon tendrils and he realised he would be able to kick upward with his heels, try to shove the man off him. Wouldn’t get him very far but he tried it anyway.

            The kick was quickly suppressed with a firm grip on his boots. The upward motion had only angled his ass ever higher, which gave Ardyn more room for purchase, more opportunity to drive deeper, right to the hilt, and hold himself there, throbbing and pulsing against his frictive, bundled nerves.

            Ardyn laughed, that familiar, caustic triumph echoing in the tinny room, and as he started moving once more he began to talk, running his mouth as he ran him into the ground.

            ‘You may not be my key to ascension, but oh, my dear, sweet thing… you fit me so perfectly.’ This last sentence was punctuated by a particularly rough thrust, then Ardyn held his dick there again, long enough to let the tension bleed across the room and pool in the silent corners. Prompto stilled his sniffles to match that silence, until the only noise now was Ardyn, gasping and shuddering with the tightness. A moment to recover, then he bowed his head to plant a kiss on the soft underside of Prompto’s thigh. ‘You are mine, you should never forget that.’ Another kiss, a slower and more tender thrust. ‘And what better gift for my favourite toys than allowing them to bear witness to their own glorious destruction?’

            Prompto let Ardyn’s voice in, because shutting off his senses was too dangerous an option. He knew the words, ridiculous and pretentious as they were, would stay with him for far longer than they had any right to. But his jaw ached and his ass burned and if only Ardyn would just satisfy himself, finish up and get this over with, then perhaps he could rest.

            Ardyn’s gyrations grew more violent with every passing second, his breath growing shorter, his hands gripping harder. The daemon that shared his core growled, and it sounded like a bubbling storm drain, putrid and ready to burst its banks. The tentacles fastening Prompto’s hands to the gun’s grip began emitting a syrupy discharge, which dribbled into his stuffed mouth, layering his trapped tongue with the pungent taste of salty liquorice. His head hit the base of the shelving unit with every thrust, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep his finger from knocking on the trigger, to the point that his bones shook with the effort. Any longer and he’d twitch too far, and…

_Somebody, something, make it stop._

            He wanted the golden light from the altar to come back, because this didn’t feel like communion. This felt like murder.

            Eventually the thrusting reached fever pitch. The oily tentacles holding him shook and writhed, smearing dark discharge across his skin, his clothes, his hair. Ardyn released a low, guttural cry and drove in mercilessly one final time, shooting his load deep inside and all but collapsing upon Prompto’s doubled-over form in a shivering heap.

            The tendrils that bound his hands to his gun quivered and vibrated softly, although they didn’t release their hold. They seemed utterly spent, as did the man on top of him. Silence descended, warm and comforting purely because of the absence of pain. And yet, in the aftermath, Prompto was sure the world was crumbling around him. Every way his eyes turned, the scene before him dissolved into fragments that decayed in a near-on drunken haze. He felt like a program hanging for lack of CPU space. Yeah, that was appropriate. He could practically see the little hourglass icon rotating before him. All a fabrication, of course, a direct consequence of Ardyn’s constant little digs about his origins. Sometimes, he hated his mind. How suggestible it seemed.

            Eventually, Ardyn shifted, pulling his now-flaccid length out of him in a sickening slurp. The daemon tentacles retracted and Ardyn reached forth, pulling the gun from his mouth as if it were a ceremonial act. Prompto allowed him to prise his stiff fingers off the grip, heart beating unbelievably fast, lungs stoppered with held breath. Just a little further, just a few more inches out of the way, and the immediate danger would be gone…

            Ardyn pulled with more vigour than expected and the trigger tripped over. A shot rang out, barking against something hollow in a mind-shattering cacophony. Prompto yelled. Every muscle in his body seized up and it took him a further few seconds, each of which seemed like eternities, to realise that he had not been shot. Somewhere behind his head, an empty tin rolled back and forth on the ground.

            There was a breathy, repetitive noise in front of him. As his heart climbed down from the shock, as the ringing in his ears abated, he realised it was Ardyn, laughing in that way people did when they really knew they shouldn’t. When they knew it was inappropriate.

            ‘Y… you…’ He tried to get angry - it would have been cathartic to get angry - but all he could do was crumble into confused, overwhelmed sobbing. Ardyn tutted above him.

            ‘Come now, I wasn’t really going to shoot you.’ And he flung the gun to the far corner, where it skittered on its side in a harsh screech on the concrete. A nails-on-a-blackboard sound that tore at the nerves. The noise made Prompto cower instinctively, hating himself as he did so. Then, a beneficent hand reaching for his shoulder, pulling him upright. Tidying his unkempt, dirtied hair. Concerned eyes inspecting him while that kindly tutting continued. The daemonic part of Ardyn, that sinister creature with the sallow, soulless gaze, slipped into the background without a parting word, tentacles disappearing entirely, although, unlike that time at the shrine, the black sludge it left behind did not fade.

            No sunlight in here to burn the sludge away, that was why. And suddenly, Prompto longed for nothing but the sun.

            He wasn’t aware that his eyes were streaming until Ardyn used his sleeve to wipe the wetness away. His cheeks were utterly soaked, salt water dripping down to mingle with saliva and daemon discharge, and Ardyn looked delighted.

            ‘I think it’s safe to say, my dear, that you are finally broken.’

            _No. I’m not. I’m not!_

            But he didn’t say so out loud, for fear Ardyn would start all over again. He simply stared. Waited for Ardyn to make his next move. Hoped that Noctis would come and rescue him before long. There was a clock on the wall but he didn’t risk a sly glance at it. It had to be the early hours of morning by now. Noctis had to get here soon.

            Ardyn gave him the opportunity to speak, but he left it unfilled. At length, Ardyn sighed and continued.

            ‘With your spirit taken care of, let us move on.’ Ardyn hoisted him up to his feet and pulled up his pants, buckled him in with little care for the fact he was still dirtied and filled with that vile mixture of machine lubricant and come. Then he dragged him forward.

            To the cross, the weird contraption at the centre of the room. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it before. Of course, it was pushed up against the wall, and required some adjustment from Ardyn to bring it to the fore. And there were so many pulleys and wires attached to the device, making it rigged up with as much complexity as the sails of a tall ship.

            Again, Prompto’s thoughts stumbled back to Noctis. Back to one of the many times accompanying him to the Nautical Museum in Insomnia. Remembering the glow in Noct’s eyes when he got lost in the paraphernalia on display there, looking at all the different sorts of rigging, examining every bit of information about the historical vessels, the science expeditions, the _fish_.

            Noctis had never been interested in the gunships.

            Prompto eyed his weapon in its lonely corner. For a second, he felt the pressure fill up his body again, expanding his insides. Only a second, but it was enough to make him feel further from Noctis than he ever had since falling from the train.

            He’d never stopped to consider what Noctis thought when he’d first picked his Crownsguard weapon. It was unconventional. Nobody used a gun but the Niffs. But he’d never made the connection, somehow it had skipped his mind.

            No time left to dwell. Ardyn guided him towards the contraption, and his resistance was half-hearted. Didn’t mean he wasn’t fucking terrified at the same time. He simply didn’t know how to rebel in the wake of what had just happened with the gun. He was still shaking.

            He was about to be strapped to the machine, that much was obvious.

            _Fuck, fuck, no… Why can’t he just lock the cell door and leave my arms free?_

Struggling now would not end well. He dreaded ending up strapped to the machine with a trapped nerve, and it already ached so much. As before, if – no, _when_ Noctis came to rescue him, he’d need the ability to fight. To help. To be of use.

            He suppressed a sob, and let Ardyn position him as one would a doll, his back against the machine, his wrists dragged out to either side as if in salutation, braced against the icy steel beams. Muscles like jelly, holding position to indicate his compliance, although he let his jaw fall slack as he spoke softly his denial.

            ‘No. No, I don’t want to.’

            He didn’t say please. Just repeated the words enough times to make it clear his acceptance was no indication of his desire. It was more for himself than for Ardyn’s sake.

            Ardyn ignored him with all the studious focus of a labourer absorbed in some menial task. And again, that cold jolt shredding his belly, because that lack of reaction to his words was so impersonal, so unconcerned, so objectifying. A clear sign not that he was unimportant, merely that he was non-human. NH, like the markings on his wrist indicated.

            A click as the mechanisms slotted into place. Then a pull, which started out gentle and ended up a vicelike grip. His wrists, buoyed upward by the arms of the device lengthening, spreading out and up in a crude simulation of a crucifix. Tendons stretching around his shoulders, pulling taut like strained elastic, nearly to the point of snapping. A cold shiver coursed through him, right to his teeth, as if he had crunched down on a spoonful of ice cubes. His feet didn’t even touch the ground now, every ounce of his weight hanging off his tender, bruised shoulders.

            Then, adding to the line-up, came a firm claw-like pressure around his chest and midriff. Two strict iron bands cinching him in until his back was held fast against the central beam, clamped so tight that his lungs were constricted, and within seconds he grew short of breath. Added to that, a few smaller claws jabbed their way into his sides uncomfortably, pinching at the skin in a manner that would bruise if given enough time.

            The whole contraption was bent forward slightly, and this only increased his predicament. The weight, the angle, everything seemed perfectly engineered to cause maximum discomfort. The strain was incredible, and while at first he attempted to struggle, the pain soon put a stop to this. He was going to pop his joints for sure now. There was no way he would survive without that happening.

            He gritted his teeth, hissed out breath in a panic. He would gladly have swapped out with the earlier stress position in a heartbeat, because at least there he had been able to touch his feet to the floor. Here, he was made painfully aware that he weighed too much, and that was a harsh tug on his psyche, a familiar breed of shame.

            Ardyn was concentrating on checking over the pulleys and wires. That firm, piercing gaze that revealed not an inch of leeway.

            _Don’t plead with him, don’t you dare._

He said nothing. Would have been too difficult anyway, with the iron tightness in his chest. He let his eyes convey his emotions, imploring Ardyn and hating him with equal measure. Bright, shining, brimming with tears and threatening to cross over into double vision from the panic and the fright.

            ‘I know, I know, it hurts, doesn’t it, my poor beauty.’ Ardyn surveyed his perversely-restrained trophy with immense satisfaction, a twinkle in his eye as he added, ‘You can rest assured that I understand. Oh, how I do.’

            Prompto would have huffed if his chest hadn’t been pulled so tight by the rack.

 _You couldn’t possibly even begin to understand me,_ was what he thought in place of words.

_Oh? And why was that?_

            The part of his brain that asked that last bit was starting to sound a lot like Ardyn. He bit down on his discomfort, and answered.

_Come on. I’m an idiot. I make dumb jokes. I take stupid photographs. I try too hard to fit in. I’m not worldly or wise or anything that you probably imagine yourself to be. We are entire universes apart._

Ardyn flashed his golden eyes up at him while checking over the collar that still hung heavily round his neck, as though he was aware of his thoughts. It made Prompto’s stomach churn.

            ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ Ardyn purred. ‘But you should. After all, you’ve been forgotten, discarded just as I have. Cursed by a mere accident of birth. I’m sure beneath that chipper exterior, you resent them as much as I do.’

            _No, you’re wrong._

Prompto screamed his response vehemently inside his head, but even as he did so, he could feel the suggestion tugging at his mind.

_No… I don’t want to be disillusioned about people. I don’t want to be like you. But the way you’re treating me, you’re making that awfully hard._

            _I’m so fucking tired of you._

_How is it that you’re not tired of me?_

He avoided Ardyn’s gaze, because it was too intense, and because he suspected the man could hear his thoughts. His eyes landed on a small scuttling form amid the shadows. A spider. His face contorted in disgust, and he chose instead to focus on a higher row of shelving. Sharp, serrated metal. Rust and dried blood. This, too, made him shiver, but at least it wasn’t twitching.

            ‘Before we move on,’ Ardyn said, voice silken and perfectly controlled, ‘we ought to fulfil the Emperor’s request.’ From the table he procured a long needle, a strap of some sort, and a set of tubes.

            Oh. The blood.

            Prompto squirmed fruitlessly as Ardyn approached. He hated needles, in a way he couldn’t describe without feeling like he wanted to puke. Something about the way they sliced through flesh and embedded themselves gave him flashes of light and colour, made the memory of some smell like disinfectant permeate his nose. He got the impression he might have been exposed to such things far too often in early life, because that was the only explanation that made sense.

            For a brief moment, he wondered if, as a new born, he had received any injections in this very keep.

            Back to uncomfortable reality as Ardyn threaded the strap round his upper arm, forming a tourniquet. Prompto steeled his nerves, tried to steady himself as Ardyn lovingly stroked a finger along the inside of his elbow, making the vein rise. Then, the squeamish sensation of sharpness slipping through skin and into the noodle-like outer layer of the vein. He didn’t look. He knew there would be bright red seeping from the puncture site, drawing up through the tube and into the bag on the other end.

            Ardyn had no plasters or bandages to secure the needle in his arm, so he just left it hanging while it did its job. It stung. Prompto tried his hardest not to make a sound, but extracting the blood - how much did Iedolas even _need,_ anyway? - was taking a while, and before long he couldn’t help but moan, choking up into a cry when he registered how pathetic he sounded.

            When it was over, Ardyn yanked the needle out with no concern for caught nerves, pressing a finger down over the puncture site to stop blood blossoming out. He held position for a full minute, saying nothing, then released, and only the smallest trickles of blood came out.

            ‘There, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?’

            The bag was fastened securely and placed back on the table, but apparently this bloodletting was not enough, because Ardyn dragged the needle lazily over his flesh when he was done, threatening to bury it here and there, humming something horribly familiar as he went along. He paid no mind to the stuttered hitching of Prompto’s breath, and gods, how much that made him feel like an alien under autopsy. Like an object.

            It was when Ardyn waved the needle’s point a little too close to Prompto’s eyes that he finally found his voice, and when he spoke, he spoke bitterly, hissing out the words until they left him feeling deflated.      

            ‘Haven’t you had your fun?’

            He didn’t understand where this sudden defiance came from - it merely felt like part of the cycle of resistance and submission he’d come to know so well.

            ‘My dear boy, you’re in for a long night.’ Ardyn tutted, clicked his tongue as Prompto shot him a furious glare. ‘But be that as it may, do remember. It’s just one night.’

            And here he drew his arm up, extended a hand toward the rusted clock on the wall, which read three a.m. He twisted his fingers artfully like he was pulling at some hidden thread in the air, something so incredibly palpable. Then, a faint ringing in Prompto’s ears, accompanied by the same tightness in his muscles that he had felt in the throne room. Dust again suspended before his eyes. Time grinding to a halt under Ardyn’s command. The purple haze bleeding in to the world like ink upon blotting paper, and the hands on the clock froze in mid-swing.

            Self-assured, and with a cocky smirk decorating his face, Ardyn wound closer to Prompto’s outstretched form on the cross, stroked down his cheek a little too hard for it to be mistaken as comfort, and repeated his last words.

            ‘It’s just one night.’

            This time, it sank deep. Prompto could feel the sweat beading around his brows where they scrunched upward in worry. He stared past the fringes of Ardyn’s wild, tousled hair toward the stalled clock, willing it to move, and a small, fervent whine escaped his mouth.

            ‘Oh…’ The sugary concern returned, and Prompto wasn’t entirely sure it was an act. ‘You remind me of someone. So pure and innocent.’ Here he trailed off, eyes misting, gazing into some middle distance. ‘Yes. Quite undeserving of the horrors that would befall him…’

            Ardyn held up a hand, and Prompto watched, transfixed, as purple-red arcs of light twisted round it, flared outward, enveloping him in a liquid rush that felt cool and tingling upon his skin. Then, a little too much on the edge of irritation, as if raw chili had been rubbed into his flesh and was only just starting to take effect. It twisted, tensed his muscles, made them contract weirdly. Felt like his bones were shifting, rearranging, itching to break out and pulling the flesh as it did so. He whimpered, and bit down on his lower lip to stop the sound escaping.

            Ardyn started to smile, but as the moments went on, his smile turned cold and empty, shifted into something more akin to horror, as if what he saw stung him.

            He sighed, sounding more vulnerable than ever, and turned abruptly on his heel.

            ‘I’ll be but a moment.’

            Alone in the near-darkness now, Prompto took to fretting more loudly. His voice had lost its high-pitched edge, and he was reminded uncomfortably of the times he’d hallucinated himself as a Magitek Trooper, back in the mountains.

            Is that what was happening now? His body did feel heavier. Could it be armour?

            When Ardyn returned, he was dragging something behind him on wheels. It was hard to see in the dim environment, but it was tall and thin, like those whiteboards they used to use in school.

            The cell door creaked, and as Ardyn neared him, he realised it was a mirror. A full-length mirror, simple and unadorned, of the type one might see in a medical facility. As Ardyn pulled it into position before him, angling it so he could see himself, he barely even registered the sight of his own jaw falling slack in shock. Because what he saw couldn’t be right.

            Staring back at him, stretched out on the rack like a sacrifice to the gods, was a figure that by now he was used to seeing in front of him, on top of him, above him. A near-perfect twin of the man who held the mirror up at his side, from the golden eyes down to the patterns on his cloak, the same in almost every way but for the collar that still hung from his own neck, and the black daemonic ichor that still seeped from the original’s eyes. He uttered a small cry and watched the red-haired man in the mirror do the same.

            His soul was cracking apart, he could feel it. Why would Ardyn made him look like _him?_ What possible reason?

            Prompto wailed, and his voice was deeper, smoother, more like honey. He hated it. Wanted to claw his skin off, claw off this disguise even if it meant bleeding to death. He wanted Ardyn out of him.

            Perched at the mirror’s edge, his tormentor watched his reaction with grim resolve. Already, Ardyn was shifting into shadows, leaving Prompto with his cruelly-warped face the only thing that looked like Ardyn in the room. A sigh from the shadows, and darkness gathered in, obscuring most of the room from view. A voice, coarse and gravelly, directed at Prompto where he hung on the cross.

            ‘Your name is Ardyn Lucis Caelum, and now your torture begins.’


	6. What Do You Want From Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeing through the eyes of the Fallen Healer King is a torture worse than death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, chapter title from the Floyd themselves.  
> Sorry this took so long to update. I've been super busy with work. My trials are nearly over, but Prompto/Ardyn's are just beginning.

In the beginning there was darkness, only warm, all-encompassing darkness. It sank into his skin, all inky-black and tender, and it spoke of soft comforts. He could have lain swaddled within it forever, but a higher force was in motion, gyrating and shifting beyond the warm, safe murk.

            The darkness parted. God moved upon the waters, and the first thing He instilled in the formless void, the first thing he let there be was light. From one angle, it was a cosmic shift that spanned centuries. And from another, it was as ordinary as the flick of a light switch in a dirtied, forgotten room. For Prompto, it was both these things, because from the moment Ardyn had raised his hand and the transformation had begun, he had diverged into dual streams of existence, seeing these two states simultaneously, the holy and the mundane, and he ended up squinting as shafts of brightness - the buzzing glow from an ageing incandescent bulb - cut through hazy dust-loaded air to reflect upon the face of the water, the mirror-image that lay on the dirtied glass before him. Too bright, too intense, and no, he could not look any longer. He closed his eyes. Felt the heavens continue to shift around him.

            As God moved through the days second and third and fourth, forming the world anew all pliant as clay beneath His fingertips, he kicked up a storm that dredged all the daemons from the depths. The wind; a roar that numbed the ears. The veils of rain; a relentless hammering that drenched and saturated and quelled all fury and strength that did not originate from the storm itself. And at the centre of the storm, there was a man. A sacrificial lamb, trussed and bound and ready. Castigated under the baleful eye of the storm’s eternal, yet ephemeral light. Looking almost like Noctis, receiving the Fulgurian’s blessing. Looking almost like Luna, brandishing the Trident in the face of Leviathan’s wrath. Looking like both these things, and equally unwilling, only, one ought to take away the black and the blonde threads that framed their faces, and add the red of fresh blood, the red of martyrdom.

            The day moved to the seventh, and there, a whisper at his ear. The Lord God himself, the self-assured spiritual rumble of Bahamut. ‘ _The day the folly of man was revealed. The day your transcendence was denied. And here … and here is why.’_

The roar of the wind reached fever pitch, and he was aware there was a clamour of activity outside his prison cell. Angry voices, frenzied shouts, confusion, hammering on the door, demanding that he be executed _now_ and _oh gods, why?_ The only thing that made sense was the fact he was scared.

 

When he opened his eyes, he was alone on the cross in Zegnautus Keep, with only his red-haired reflection for company.

            The clock on the wall still ticked over on endless repeat at three a.m. Didn’t matter how much he willed it to move. Didn’t matter where he cast his eyes in the room either, because that horrific reflection was ever-present in the corners of his vision.

            At first, he closed his eyes. But then his imagination started to run amok, tracing missteps over the parts of his memories he wanted to forget, so he was left no choice but to open those bleary eyes once more, and face down the reality.

            He now looked like Ardyn. For all intents and purposes, he _was_ Ardyn. What a cruel trick - had he not endured enough already? Given no time to recover from his ordeal with the gun, his head span with this new disorienting mind game, making him lightheaded and grasping fervently for solid ground.  Just a shame that, strung up like this, his feet barely touched the floor.

            Minutes passed. The clock stayed trapped one second past three. Whoever had turned the lightbulb on in the room remained conspicuously hidden, and the shadows in the corners practically crawled with ill portent. He got the feeling that tentacle daemon of murk and mire from before was perched just out of sight. Behind him, perhaps, or spliced halfway into the back of his mind, watching, no, _feeling_ him squirm. He didn’t try to turn inward to look, this time. He knew it didn’t like to be looked at.

            At first, being left like this was distressing. After a while, it became almost boring. Or rather, would have been, had his whole body not ached with every tight breath. Strange, how the ache was so real, the pain so present, and it had obviously been such a long time, but he had not felt the need to relieve himself, nor the slightest pang of hunger. Well, if it was a side effect of Ardyn’s time-stalling power, it was one he would gladly take.

            Some of his sense of self returned, enough for him to try and lighten his mood. He raised heavy-lidded eyes, stared down his perverse reflection.

            ‘I’m a fucking idiot.’

            Watching the words spill from Ardyn’s lips gave him no small satisfaction. It was worth the tightness in his strained chest. He spoke again.

            ‘Yeah, I’m a douchebag of a Chancellor who likes to torture innocent people for fun.’

            Something stirred deep in his chest. A tightening, a sharp pain like a blade dragging across flesh.

            Too far.

            He wasn’t innocent, anyways. He was Magitek. He probably deserved to fester alone in this prison.

            That self-piteous look was unbecoming on Ardyn’s regal face. He glowered.

            ‘Stupid face. Stupid,’ he said, and he repeated it a few more times, feeling the muscles in his forehead twitch, because he probably would have said the same thing had it been his own reflection. His eyes smarted; he wanted to cry, but he couldn’t bear the thought of staring down that face all sullied with tears. So he groaned, strained against his cruel metal bonds instead, struggled fruitlessly in the cold yellow cell light, felt his panicked heart beating faster, feeling the desperation and the iniquity add another layer to the already-too-tight restraints.

 _‘Ah yes, so very amusing,’_ chided the part of his brain that was starting to sound like Ardyn, and he had no spare breath to tell it to shut the fuck up. He cast his head down, and tried not to think about why he was here, why he now looked like this. He relented, and let the shadows cluster on the verges of that dim, fizzing carbon filament light. _Just accept, because right now, what else can you do?_

 

Time indefinite passed, and when the barred door screeched open once more, his arms were numb and his breathing had fallen into a shortened, regular rhythm to appease the pull at his lungs. He could have fallen asleep, he could be dreaming right now, and that would make sense, because the figure that walked in was unfamiliar and yet undeniably human. A man dressed in regimental black, wearing badges bearing unfamiliar symbols, face sporting a stern expression. Standard-issue military man, or perhaps security guard, but there was something about the cut of his cloth that made him stand out, like he was from another century entirely.

            Prompto expected some tease or taunt, but the man said nothing, merely kicking the mirror to one side and starting to untie him from his awkward position. The instant the pressure was released, he fell forward with a gasp, legs buckling beneath him as his nerves shivered with the sudden change.

            ‘On your feet, Healer.’

            Prompto’s initial reaction was to blink and stare intently at the ground, at the small flecks of dust and grit in front of his flaring nose. It was that word - _healer -_ and the realisation that came with it. This man really thought he was Ardyn, but not Ardyn as he was now. Ardyn from ages long past. Now the words from the sanctuary came back to him in striking clarity. _I was so good at my job, as well. Taking away your sins that you might be saved._

What changed?

            He supposed he was about to find out.

            He uttered a quiet ‘Sorry,’ which earned him a winding kick to the stomach, and he choked out the rest of his breath, trying not to look at his aged hands as he propped himself up. The moment he was upright, the man grabbed him by the thick metal collar and reattached the strict rod, this time in front of him, re-shackling his tired and aching wrists to it, not caring that some of the fabric from that stupid elaborate coat got caught in the metal clasps. Prompto whimpered, hating that his voice came out in that low, bassy rumble, and he thought about Ardyn restraining him the same way earlier and it made him feel sick.

            _I’m always just a copy. A … clone of something more real._

The man rubbed the back of his short-clipped hair in exasperation as Prompto fussed and fretted, then resorted to backhanding him harshly across the face. Prompto reeled from the blow, spluttering, holding back at the last second from apologising again.

            ‘Get up.’

            No space for recourse. He tried not to make a sound, and he got up, and looked at the space just shy of the newcomer’s eyes. Obedience. Subservience. _Come on, man, get the hint. I’m not trying to make it difficult for you._

            The man grunted, and dragged him out of the room.

 

As soon as he left the cell, his surroundings became unfamiliar. It wasn’t the same corridor he’d been marched down to get here. The walls were smoother, more grey-white like marble or quartzite, and - yes, at the far end, there were pillars. Like a shrine. Or a classical building. It reminded him of old history books at school. If it wasn’t for the pain, the confusion, it would make him feel … almost nostalgic.

            Down this new corridor he was led, and his chaperone was much less forgiving than Ardyn had been, wasting no time in kicking him when he took too long, manhandling him as if he was expecting disobedience with every passing second. It didn’t seem to matter how much Prompto tried to do as he was told; the man was intent on treating him badly anyway.

            _What did I do wrong?_

The man bundled him into a room at the end of the grand corridor, a room filled with blinding light, equipped with nothing but a couple of grey chairs and a single table with a large metal rung in its centre. He told him to sit, and Prompto did. Then, a yank of his arms that made him feel like his wrist bones were being pulled apart, and the rod was removed, and his hands were fastened to the centre of the table. Before the man moved away, he took the time to smash Prompto’s face down hard into the table’s surface. The bridge of his nose, flushed with pain. The corners of his eyes, leaking tears from the shock. And he was angry, frustrated. He didn’t understand.

_Whatever it is I’ve done, you won’t even give me the chance to make it right._

_I’m trying. Honestly, I’m trying._

But the man had done his job. He said nothing further, just up and left, as abruptly as he had arrived.

            Too many minutes passed in the cold, bare room before he was joined by another, too many minutes in which Prompto got to examine, in great detail, the patterning on those elaborate sleeves he hated so much. He was quite fixated on them by the time his new companion first spoke.

            ‘Ardyn Lucis Caelum.’ A voice that barrelled through the atmosphere like a freight train, caustic and unforgiving. A pair of hands, thin and clean and tightly-clasped, came to rest on the table before him, just out of reach. Clean sleeves, finely-tailored, with some of the same odd patterning that decorated his own. No extraneous movement. This man’s entrance had him completely on edge, and he was terrified to look up. He kept his eyes focussed on the rung to which his hands were shackled as the stringent voice continued. ‘Don’t feign ignorance with me. You defiled the covenant, and now the nation wants answers. You cannot expect the whim of one man to go against the needs of an entire nation, surely?’

            He didn’t know how to respond, so he fell silent. The interrogator - because that’s what this man was, wasn’t he? - continued his speech.

            ‘You’re here now because you will be held accountable. Yours, after all, is the same failing as Ifrit’s. Do you not ever think about the lives that are now lost? About how it must have felt for them?’ Words designed to bite, although, being who he was, he had no idea what the man was talking about.

            Prompto Argentum - no, Ardyn Lucis Caelum - looked up at his interrogator, hoping his eyes would convey enough of the sentiment he felt. _Whatever it is … I’m sorry._

            The words he heard spill from his own lips, however, were quite different.

            ‘I only did what was necessary.’

            And he started to say something else, too, but the man cut him off, talking over him in a well-practised stream of syllables and force, a power play of an outpouring, designed to intimidate, to force him into a corner.

            ‘Your actions have import, beyond what you meant of them, and for that you must answer. Don’t tell me you don’t know. Don’t tell me, yet again, that you don’t know! You do. No - don’t butt in, don’t avoid the question. _Listen.’_

A click of the fingers before his face, drawing him to attention.

            ‘The trails you left behind at the temple. The people you left to die. Knowingly. _Intentionally_.’

            ‘Bahamut had already decided … all our fates.’ Again, Prompto felt his mouth move, felt the words escape beyond his control, as if he was watching from behind a smokescreen.

            ‘The healers aren’t the only ones who claim to talk to the gods,’ the man replied, quick as lightning.

            At this, he fell silent. No idea what to say.

            ‘You killed them,’ his interrogator continued.

            ‘I didn’t.’

            ‘You _did._ You did and you meant it, _’_ the man said, talking over him the instant he started to refute it, not giving him any time for rebuttal. The part inside him that was still Prompto understood this tactic, had seen Gladio perform it from time to time on unhelpful folk they were meant to be getting some kind of service from. A hotel room that wasn’t working out, a faulty weapon, a mis-sold train ticket. Great way to push conmen into a corner. He understood, he got that it was meant to rile, to force a reaction that might betray the truth.

            This young and highly-strung version of Ardyn he currently seemed to be inhabiting, however, did not have this familiarity. He responded with an acid defence, all emotion, no decorum.

            ‘What’s the point in healing them if none of us are going to be saved?’

            He all but screamed that last sentence out, chains banging on the table in a cacophony to mirror the edge in his tone. _Gods_ , it was unbearable, not being in control of his own body like this, having to watch this furious, almost childish creature destroying his wrist even further by banging them on the table so harshly, and why, _why_ did he have to still feel that sensation so strongly? He couldn’t will his mind away from the tingling, the feeling of his carpal tunnel nerves dancing in tune to Ardyn’s furious denials.

            As before, with all of the worst tortures Ardyn had bestowed upon him, he was not allowed to drift. Every time he tried to distance his mind from the situation, something brought him back, like a camera lens being twisted into focus.

            The man sighed, kneaded the bridge of his nose, reaffixed him with tired, determined eyes.

            ‘You can make this quick, or you can make this whole affair take its own, sweet time. It’s entirely up to you.’

            He stared back at the man, making no comment, feeling utterly empty inside, and at length the man gave a loud, pointed sigh and rose, knocked on the door of the white, bright room. After a moment, a resounding knock echoed and he nodded through the slat in the door. Then, the sound of something unlocking. The door drew wide to allow guards in, as the interrogator left with a wide smile.

            ‘Talk to you again soon, Ardyn.’

 

He was taken back to his cell, which now was lined with thick grey brick, instead of the modulated workshop shelves he’d come to dread. The rig was gone, and so was the mirror. No sign of those tables with their syringes and saw blades. No sign of oil or lubricant or machine parts. Just the grey-veined marble, aged and crumbling.

            Here, his cuffs were affixed to a chain directly above his head, so his arms were not pulled apart either side like the cross, and not wrenched upward behind him like the strappado position from before. The guard that brought him in pulled a crank off to one side and the tension on the chain above his head pulled taut, yanking him up until he was balanced on his toes. At first he thought this position might be more bearable than the others, that was, until his legs were fastened together, near the ankle, by another chain. Now unsteady, he tried to keep still, to stop the pull on his already-suffering arms.

            The first guard was relieved of his post by another, bulkier and broader, hair not close-cropped but a wild, dark mess about his shoulders, and the first thing this new guard did was bend into genuflection, uttering a desultory _‘Highness,’_ by way of a greeting.

            There was a wry glint in this guard’s eye that scared him. It was a look that was almost golden in its intensity, and that made him have his doubts - _who was this? Looked awfully familiar -_ but there was not much time to wonder, as the guard raised his hand to reveal a length of knotted leather. Intricate, braided, looked positively barbaric.

            ‘A lash for each betrayal, now I think that’s only fair.’

            Prompto - _no, wait, Ardyn, I’m sorry –_ was given no space to parse this information, no time to analyse the worrying cadence of that voice, because the first strike of the whip hit him square across the shoulders, stinging even through thick coat layers, leaving him trembling in shock, biting down on his lower lip to keep from yelling. The guard laughed at first, then abruptly made a derisive snort. Dissatisfaction. No, that wasn’t good. He waited for the fallout.

            The guard stepped in behind him and hoisted his voluminous coat over one shoulder, jerking his absurdly-embellished shirt up to give better access to his bare skin.

            And the next strike, it hurt like he couldn’t have imagined. He teetered forward in the inertia, and he knew he was yelling. He knew the guard was enjoying every minute. Then, the sound of leather tassels pulled taut and ready, and he knew more was on the way.

            Gritting his teeth was not enough to prepare for the force. One blow fell, harsh leather tearing at tender skin, and another, and another, and every time he cried out the guard grunted like he had been afforded a rare prize. It made his head spin all the more, made his stomach churn like he was drunk. He was going to be sick.

            _Endure. Endure it. You can, it’s what you were built for._

How funny, that the part of his mind so reserved for giving him grief over being non-human would now come into play to save him. He listened to it, thinking _yes, I can endure. I am built for so much more._

_So much more._

One principal thought: don’t let Ardyn win. Don’t let his life, his words, his actions, his trials, win over _you._

He held on to that, and he suffered through the thirty lashes he received. Each time, his face contorting with pain, his eyes leaking salt and water, his back streaming with blood and plasma, his breath shuddering and all stilted like a record skipping. He endured, and when it was done, the guard snorted, pulled back on his tousled red hair and let go with a rough, possessive shake.

            ‘You got a long way to go before you atone, _healer.’_

The last word, as much an insult as the worst slur.

            Prompto - _Ardyn -_ shut his eyes against it, and listened out for the clanging of iron bars. Once the footsteps receded down the hall, he opened his eyes, let himself collapse against the chains that held him, feeling utterly overwhelmed. The numbness in his hands was now replaced by the smarting from the raw lacerations across his back, and he bit his lip to stop from thinking too deeply on it - _it was too much, all at once -_ and he just let himself hang there, in the inertia and the silence.

_I didn’t ask for this._

_‘Yeah, and neither did he.’_

That rebellious voice at his back again. He could plead with it all he liked to not make him have sympathy, but …

            _‘Sympathy is what you’re best at, isn’t it? Perhaps that’s why he chose you.’_

_No. He chose me because I am weak. I need to be stronger. I need to become better._

Chained up and at the mercy of his captors, he didn’t see how such a thing could be possible. But he could hope. It was all he had left. He continued to let his wrists take his body weight, cursing the newfound kilograms with a hatred that now seemed so, so tame in comparison to the other horrors he had endured.

            He almost wanted the tenderness of Ardyn’s unasked-for touches again, because at least the illusion of loving grace was warm and soft, and to weather such a treacherous thought he bowed his head, prayed for forgiveness. Somewhere on the end-spectrum of his consciousness, he felt Ardyn Lucis Caelum stir, and start to pray as well.

            _‘Lord, I am not worthy, I am not worthy,’_ he heard himself say, feeling the strange sensation of his mouth stretching and twisting round the words unbidden by his own will, _‘but please, Lord, only say the word, and I shall be pure again.’_

 


	7. Wearing the Inside Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know, I always wondered why Ardyn picked that specific way of displaying the corpses at the end of the game. 
> 
> I like to think it held no small amount of significance for him.
> 
> Anyway. Ardyn backstory continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title again from the Floyd. Excellent track from the Division Bell.
> 
> Many thanks to @bestchocobro and partner for supplying me with whisky for this one. And for giving me ideas. Sweet dreams, I suppose.

The lights flickered in the dawn-shaded room, an accompaniment to the blow that resounded off the walls. He was falling forward, clasping at smooth stone slabs, curling in upon himself in an attempt to shield his head. Messy strands of hair covered his eyes and stuck to his sweat-streaked jaw. A cough, and a dark patch decorated the ground before him.

            ‘Spitting blood already? I’ve barely begun.’

            He was in the interrogation room again, and his captor was intent on hurting him today. His shirt was half-torn off, and new bruises decorated his skin, such a grim contrast to the milky, clear skin and finely-cut cloth of the man standing before him, impatiently tapping one burnished-leather boot bare inches from his face.

            Prompto raised his eyes, hesitantly meeting his gaze. Not a hair on that wiry, grey-streaked head was out of place from his exertions, and those narrowed, piercing eyes seemed to oscillate between blue and green as the interrogator stared back at him coldly. The man seemed to emanate such a level of hatred towards him that it was hard not to fall even further into the fantasy that he truly was no longer Prompto, but Ardyn.

            Harder still, because the man’s expression was one he himself had worn many times before. Having flashbacks in the bathroom in Lestallum, hands gripping tight the sink in place of where they wanted to be - _round Ardyn’s neck_ \- and in the height of the breakdown, catching sight of his face in the mirror above the white porcelain. Unpleasant thoughts in the car - _the car, it always came back to the damn car_ \- and how he would lean his head against the window, pretending to daydream so he wouldn’t worry Ignis, except the illusion shattered when he glimpsed himself in the wing mirror. Cold, shocked anger was what radiated from his face whenever he thought of Ardyn, and this man before him now was evidently no different. He didn’t begrudge the expression. He got it, he understood.

            Whatever Ardyn had done to warrant any of this, it couldn’t be good.

            His flesh began to crawl, and his head throbbed with more than the pain from the blow. All through him, the unbearable sensation of being _unclean_ , in a way that no shower would wash out. He wanted out of this body.

            ‘You know, it will be a lot quicker if you simply confess.’

            ‘Confess … what?’ He responded acidly through broken breaths. Enough time had passed that he’d given up trying to control Ardyn’s speech - after all, it played out like a movie, it was going to happen anyway. Now he simply settled in beneath the false skin he wore and tried to weather the pantomime as best as he could.

            Sometimes, that proved exceedingly difficult.

            A boot collided with his face and he collapsed onto his side, saw firmament, heard distant angels. Then a pressure on his chest, a searing sharp pain, and he felt a thousand daemons inside him screech.

            Wait, why screech? The daemons were made of far tougher stuff.

            He opened his eyes. A metal object was pressed to his chest; he couldn’t make sense of what it was, only that it _burned_.

            He swore.

            ‘Get it off me! Please … please! Stop!’

            A grim smile from his interrogator as he pressed the metal in harder before retracting. Prompto forced his eyes downward and caught sight of a medallion, stamped with a sigil of some sort. Hard to see with the fast movement and his dizziness, but then part of it caught the light, and it looked just like one of the symbols marked round the havens.

            It took him longer than it should have to make sense of it, but eventually he did. Havens warded off daemons with sacred symbols. Ardyn was  - for lack of a better word - _overflowing_ with daemons. Of course this would hurt.

            And then, another memory. The night they had travelled with him, before the Disc of Cauthess. Ardyn’s words, when Gladio had mentioned staying at the haven. _‘I’m afraid I’m not one for the outdoors. Let us stay at the caravan over yonder.’_

Made sense now.

            He winced with the aftershocks of pain lancing through his chest, skin still sizzling where the symbol had made contact. It felt like it had stabbed straight through to his heart, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure he would wish this pain on anyone. Then he remembered that this was something that had already happened to Ardyn in the past, and a kind of cathartic glee filled him.

            _You suffered, didn’t you. Good._

The satisfaction was short-lived. Eyes flashed open again as something firm collided with his flesh, not pinching, not hitting, but weighing down. The interrogator was on top of him now, knees either side of his midriff, pinning him to the floor by the scruff of his torn clothes. And even in the midst of such a forceful position, Prompto couldn’t help but notice how the man avoided touching the more dirtied, bloody patches on the ground.

            He barely had time to wonder how much that formal clothing would be worth, because something inside him was recoiling, hissing like white-noise, separate from his own mind but still connected to it, so deeply. It was _alive_ , and he could feel it, feel it shrivelling into the furthest reaches of his soul, hugging the walls and begging for reprieve. Using that strange language once again, except this time, he could understand it. He knew it was a daemon - in fact, he knew it was the first daemon he had ever absorbed, the original sin - but that almost didn’t matter, not when he could _feel_ it like this. He just wanted it to stop.         

            As the daemon yowled and muttered inside his head to _please, have mercy_ , he struggled, partly moved by the force of its will. He must have looked panicked, or perhaps disoriented, because his tormentor studied him as if making a decision.

            ‘It occurs to me,’ said the man, panting with the effort it took to restrain him, ‘that we have never been formally introduced. My name is Einar Vogliani.’

            It was spoken like he was supposed to react with something more than confusion. As it stood, he merely stared up numbly. Einar scoffed.

            Then the words came. Ardyn, shocked. Disbelieving.

            ‘Vogliani … Judge …’

            At this, Einar cracked a wide smile and rose up, releasing his arms. He dusted his hands off as if ridding the skin of dirt, and smoothed down the crease in his pants.

            ‘Of the _Lex Talionis_ , yes. Between my appointment and your … _duties_ … we never got the chance to meet.’

            ‘What a pity.’  

            Another kick, another spray of blood from his mouth. Einar moved his boot to avoid it being sullied. ‘More than you know. We might even have been friends, once, had you not strayed.’

            Coughing and spluttering, Prompto tried to understand. _Lex Talionis,_ it sounded like an Insomnian word. What did it mean? Could be some kind of military thing, but that didn’t fit with the man’s clothing. Wait, he said Judge, so it had to be law.

            And … _strayed_? He still didn’t know how Ardyn had strayed, or from what path, exactly.

            Einar wasn’t through.

            ‘And so, that brings us to the crux of our little problem. You know, now, that I am duty-bound by my work. A failure to confess will not protect you from the Lex Talionis.’

            ‘An eye for an eye,’ Ardyn muttered. ‘And you call me the barbarian.’

            A shrug, one that was too casual for the scene. ‘The law is what it is.’ Then Einar’s shoulders dropped, and he stepped forward once more, boot coming to settle on Ardyn’s chest where it pressed down hard, and Prompto didn’t doubt the man would be willing to sacrifice a few ribs to get what he wanted.

            ‘ _Confess_ , Ardyn.’

            When he made no attempt to speak, despite the awful pressure, Einar kicked in with his heel, enough to dislocate a rib, but only partially. Still enough to drag out a pained yell. Then he bent down and pulled him up by the throat, gripping just beneath the jaw where it hurt the most, and with his free hand he thumbed the medallion into his forehead. With the back of his head scraping against the white stone wall, and the debilitating grip at his jaw, Prompto was rendered immobile, unable to pull away.

            ‘Confess!’

            The pain was blinding. His head felt about to explode from the agony, and he opened his mouth, but what came out was no confession, only a harrowing scream. He carried on screaming, as if the pain might escape through his mouth, and he didn’t stop until his throat was sore.

            When Einar finally let up, Prompto sagged toward the ground, tears leaking from his eyes with the sheer shock of it. He tried to catch his breath, and all the while Einar watched him coldly, making unimpressed noises and flicking the medallion in his fingers like he was performing a magic trick.

            What the hell was he meant to be confessing?

            He groaned, turned his head away. Heard a slight shift before him. _No, no more._

            ‘Haven’t you done enough?’ His bitter voice cracked, but he didn’t care.

            A shallow laugh. Leather boots, pattering tap-tap-tap on the smooth stone floor.

            ‘Enough? Oh, I don’t think so. Not yet. We’ve been here half the day already, and I don’t have any place better to be.’

 

He did not confess. And dear Mr. Vogliani was no liar; he really did have no better place to be. He became more adventurous with his encouragements as the day went on, until, many hours later, he started to tire, and ordered his sorry prisoner back to his cell to start anew the very next day.

            That night, his rest was interrupted. The security guard who had lashed him before, the one with the familiar eyes, entered the cell and roused him just to kick him around a bit. As if Einar hadn’t done enough already - his body was a litany of bruises, and it felt as though there was no unmarked skin left to claim. The guard showed no pity, performing his vindictive act with regularity, and it always seemed to happen just as he felt himself about to drift off to sleep. The end result left him in a zombie-like state, where he felt caught between the worlds of the sleeping and the wakeful. The lethargy made it difficult to focus, difficult to hold a train of thought.

            If he had been more cogent he would have understood the tactic a little better.

            But he wasn’t, so he merely became more confused, more pliant, more submissive, exactly as intended.

 

Back to the interrogation room. He was given a chair, just like the first time, and his hands were once again shackled to the central rung. Einar’s clothes were different. It was a new day.

            Einar had pulled his own chair to the corner, so he was sitting at a jaunty angle, the position usually reserved for mentors or therapists looking to make a friendly connection with their subject.

            He could have laughed at the notion.

            Einar was proselytising again, and as he watched that self-assured smile creased around the smooth-spoken words, Prompto - well, _Ardyn -_ decided he really hated the man’s obnoxious face. He wasn’t listening fully to what was being said, tired and worn out as he was from his unquiet slumber. The restraints seemed unnecessary here - in all likelihood, he would not be able to stand unaided even if he was given the choice.

            He tuned back in to the monologue at the point where Einar was talking about purity, because here the man had leaned in uncomfortably close to his face, eyes mere inches away from his own.

            ‘You drifted from the Light. No, not in your impurity. There’s nothing wrong with that.’ A gentle stroke of the cheek, a touch that made him squirm. ‘Impurity was part of the assignment. The Astrals do not mind that.’

            His jaw tightened at this new information.

            ‘I - I know … but they … they lied …’

            He wasn’t speaking clearly but that didn’t matter. Got the point across. Didn’t stop his captor from monologuing, though.

            ‘What was that phrase you used earlier? _Only did what was necessary._ So it is with the Astrals. You see, Lord Bahamut created some people as vessels of mercy, and others as vessels of wrath made for destruction.’ He raised a hand in an overly-deliberate fashion. ‘You,’ and here he poked his index finger firmly into Ardyn’s forehead, ‘were created as a vessel of wrath.’

            Ardyn stared back. His brows were narrowing and he could feel the muscles tighten beneath Einar’s touch. He said nothing, feeling the words, hating them, absorbing them into his soul.

            ‘Cruel, is it not?’ Another sigh. ‘But even still, we are all children of the Astrals’ holy grace. We must accept our calling, no matter how bitter the potion we must swallow. But, when we rebel against Lord Bahamut’s rule, we rebel against Life, and so what we experience is as death.’

_Is as death … is as death …_

            The phrase rolled around in his head like a mantra, and his mouth formed each syllable’s shape without making a sound, like it was something important, like it was scripture. It probably was.

            ‘And thus, we will move on to the next stage.’ Einar Vogliani replaced his hands in their familiar calm, steady, clasped position before him, and raised an eyebrow softly as if he was discussing nothing more than a change in the weather. ‘You are to have a public trial.’

            ‘A trial … is that all?’

            Einar fixed him with a stern expression. ‘You know how it’s going to end.’

 

This time, it was not the small cell he was taken to. It was somewhere much grander, a room that was a perfect circle, bordered with pillars all milky-white that reached up to a high cupola through which scant sunlight entered in. It was the first natural light he had seen in days.

            At first, the sun’s meagre rays drew all his attention, but after a few moments he became aware of the shadows around the pillars. There were people there, rigging something up, pulling some deadened forms into motion. He squinted. Focussed. And his breath grew short.

            Corpses, pulled high to dangle free in the air on long, silver chains were what lay before him. Faces all bloated and distorted by that black grime of the Starscourge, mouths open in silent, half-decayed yells, limbs stiffened where they had once contorted in the throes of pain. And a small space inside him recognised each and every one, and intimately so. His eyes, drawn in particular to the figure of a woman hung opposite, right in front of the central column. Long black hair still shining with the traces of oil and henna, fringe cut straight but lying now in disarray. Her lips, purple and deadened.

            His stomach turned over, filling with acid. _No, please not her._ The name escaped him, but he knew she was important.

            _I did this. I let this, no, made this happen to her._

_I don’t want to look._

He shuttered his eyes closed, sucking in breaths, trying to keep the bile down. The next thing he felt: a scratching along his arms, and a tug, a pull, as he was moved to the head of the room and chained in place, arms above his head, so high he was near on the tips of his toes. His bruised ribs complained every stretch of the way, and it didn’t take long for the strain to set in throughout his entire body. And, because it wasn’t stressful enough inside his head, the daemons churning away within him started to chitter-chatter in their rasping, objecting voices. _La oss ligge, la oss hvile …_

_Let us rest. Please._

And now, when he felt like puking, he panicked, thinking it would be nothing but putrid black oil seeping from his mouth, it was going to come out, and he wanted it out, but he was scared, he …

            He merely coughed, and no dark liquid dripped. All his imagination.

            Now, a shuffling of heavy robes and soft padded shoes before him. He raised his heavy eyes.

            This man, he knew. The High Priest of the Temple, and his robes were not adorned with their usual green and gold embroidered edges, but with black, the colour of ash and ruin and mourning. Eyes bright and black as beetle shells peered out from that kind old, creased face in disbelief, scanning over his splayed and stretched-out form as if he would find answers to the heresy there.

            ‘My son,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘what have you done?’

            He didn’t know how to answer that. His lower lip trembled. The hesitation seemed all the confirmation the old priest needed. Eyes shining bright and hard now.

            ‘You know purification is required before entering the Temple’s inner sanctum. But you … you dared to enter the sanctum without that. You murdered your followers. Murdered them, and dared to enter without the rite.’ His face fell, his eyes clouding with sadness. ‘Why? Were you so ashamed of what you had done that you had to break the Covenant too?’

            Something dark and weighty bubbled up like molten lead in his chest and he choked on the words in a sudden frenzy.

            ‘No! No, they couldn’t … they couldn’t … share the load.’

            A snort issued from behind him. Einar Vogliani, still there, still listening. That wry voice cutting in. ‘Oh, this is precious. He tried to delegate his Gods-given task!’

            And now the High Priest, answering him directly, and with a little more decorum than the Judge.

            ‘It was not their cross to bear.’

            He started to choke up.

            ‘I can’t do this alone …’

            ‘Oh, my child, how did you fall so far?’ There was genuine sadness there, and it pained him to hear it. He closed his eyes. Waited for further points of contention, but there was only a silence that seemed to last for far too long.

            The night was on the verge of falling, last of the light clawing its way in to the and behind them, Einar clicked his fingers. Time to wrap things up. He was left to watch the light fade. ‘Consider it your Vigil,’ the High Priest whispered, leaning in as close as he dared. ‘Think on your sins, and commune with the Gods, if they will still entertain your audience.’

            And he was left alone in the drawing darkness, with the words ringing in his ears and the mutilated corpses dangling in the air about him like an audience of puppets.

 

Someone came in to check on him at regular intervals. A pattern began to emerge - first, his undergarments were stripped from him, and replaced if soiled, but aside from that nothing was cleaned. Not even the decency of having his hair pulled back from where it clung plastered to his face. Second, he was given bitter water. In it, he could taste salts and hydrating fluids. In place of food, it was just enough to keep him alive. And third, he was given another thirty lashes.

            They only worked by the light of a candle, and stayed at his back, and he never saw their faces.

 

More silence. A darkness that never seemed to end. Where was the light coming in from that high window?

            After what felt like hours, days, he stopped questioning. And then, in the darkness and the isolation, there came a whispering at his ear. A shadow, slithering in the murk. A daemon - _his_ daemon, his first friend from the other side. The creature of swamps and bracken and sunken dreams. At first, he felt fear, but it dissipated quickly. It was quite unnecessary when the darkness was on his side, after all.

            The daemon was restless, fussing and fretting, and he felt all its raw power roiling within him - but why couldn’t he release it? Something so elemental like that, surely it should be able to shift his chains.

            He must have been given something to dampen his strength. In the salted water, maybe?

            But enough. The daemon was talking to him now, in that strange and lyrical language, only this time he could understand it without the weird half-second delay of translation. Direct, fluid, as though he had always known the words and what they meant.

            _They ask of us the impossible,_ is what the daemon said, and it sounded so exhausted.

            He realised then that Einar, and yes, even he himself, had probably been talking in that strange language too. This whole time. The lines had blurred, too much and too far.

            He spoke back.

            ‘Are you scared?’

            A shift in the aura around him. A touch along his neck.

            _Yes._

Now Ardyn sighed, and it was a desperate, small sound. ‘So am I,’ he admitted, and the daemon clicked its tongue, followed it with a sort of crooning noise, and a tendril extended to push back the cloying hair across his forehead. He said ‘thank you.’

            Then the daemon shushed him, a comforting lullaby rising from the shadows, and the tendrils continued their caress, moving down towards … wait, no, what was the daemon doing?

            The softest of touches at his groin. A pressure that undulated and dragged and stroked at just the right point to allow heat to blossom throughout his body, and he could have cried at how heavenly, how gentle it was.

He had no time to wonder how far it was going to go. Something jolted him out of the scene, a tug at his solar plexus, and it was like going over the edge of a peak on a rollercoaster. That sickening lurch. A moment of terror, of not knowing what was happening, then his world was eclipsed in velvety black.

 

When his vision resolved, he found he was still strung up on the metal device in Zegnautus Keep. He was in his cell, and it jarred so horrendously his head span like a zoetrope wheel. But there, the same buzzing carbon filament bulb, casting the room in a dingy orange glow. The shelves with their circular saw parts and canisters of machine oil. The table with the syringe.

            His arms still ached, and for a second he suspected the trip into Ardyn’s memories was just a fabrication of his own mind, a way to explain the pain and numbness in his shoulders and chest.

            No. No way was his imagination _that_ active.

            There was something else now, beyond the pain. That warmth around his groin was still there.

            He froze. Was the daemon still touching him?

            Wait, no. It wasn’t the daemon, it moved differently. He listened.

            Muffled noises beneath him. His neck ached as he tried to look down - wasn’t going to work so easily. Had to stretch out the tendons first. Take his time.

            It was troubling, however, because the sounds were awfully familiar.

            Pressure, and wetness, and the warm stroke of a tongue along his shaft.

            _What the fuck?_

Someone was sucking him off.

            Wait, was he still Ardyn right now? Screw the strain in his neck - he had to see. Arms either side, yeah, still dressed in the damn ridiculous clothing. Hair falling in front of his eyes, slightly wavy and frayed and red. Yep. Still Ardyn.

            So who …

            A sigh from beneath him as he bucked and struggled against his restraints. Lips parting from his cock, and a halo of blond hair rising up into view. Higher, and now midnight blue eyes, oh so wide and expressive and concerned, gazed into his own from amid a freckle-marked face. Prompto. He felt his jaw slacken in shock, and he started to breathe in fits and starts as Prompto spoke, in that jubilant, high register he knew all too well, his pale, angular brows creasing as if he _cared_.

            ‘Ardyn. You were having a bad dream. I couldn’t bear to see you suffering.’

            _No, no, make him stop. Don’t let him say those things!_

Where was the real Ardyn? Was _this_ the real Ardyn? Gods, the thought made him sick, made him want to puke, he could feel the acid at the back of his throat.

Prompto smiled at him.

            ‘I hope I did okay?’

            ‘You … you …’ His husky, bitter voice cracked and he stopped trying to speak.

            Another smile, and a gentle sigh. ‘Oh, Ardyn, I was made to worship you.’

            And he bowed his head once more, and returned to his devotions.


	8. The Final Cut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the line between Prompto and Ardyn blurs, and Izunia finally appears to lay down the law.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took my sweet time with this update, but the end result is twice as long as it would have been.  
> I have been enjoying exploring my own ideas of Ancient Solheim here, as well as the concept of imitatio dei. A lot of ideas in this chapter are taken from biblical historical study, and feudalism of the Levant region, while a lot of the names are influenced by Norwegian.  
> The Vesperpool stuff relates specifically to things alluded to in the Comrades dlc, and while it's not a spoiler for the Comrades storyline, I felt it worth mentioning. I'll be expanding on that mythology in the next chapter.  
> And, again, we're heavy into the mindfuck territory, so be warned. Naming is awfully tricky for this chapter, so if you're coming back after a while, it might necessitate a quick look back to the previous chapter for context.  
> Other than that, enjoy~

 

Fuck, it felt so good, Prompto’s lips on his shaft. Admitting it made his skin burn, made him want to be sick. It was revolting, that slick warmth lapping along his length, teasing his nerves. Revolting, and yet it was true.

            It felt _good._

            The lights flickered as the stale smell of motor oil filled his senses. He strained against the machine, loath to accept what was happening. The figure down at his feet, he didn’t want to say it was Prompto, just as he didn’t want to call himself Ardyn. But what he was seeing in front of him, what he could hear, even what he _felt_ told him otherwise.

            He was Ardyn. He wore his memories like he wore his skin. And it seemed he had little other option than to accept this cruel reversal. The more he tried to ignore this fact, the more the sensations below the belt made themselves known.

            As his cock was toyed with, licked, engorged and taken in to the back of the throat, Prompto - Ardyn - whoever the fuck he was any more, this was all too weird and upsetting - was left with no choice but to endure. He moaned, and his moans turned to sobs that sounded ridiculous with that deep voice. He tried to focus on anything else but what was happening - the grime on the ceiling, the dust kicking up into the sallow light, the torn edges of the cardboard containers on those metal shelves. It wasn’t working, and if anything, it only made him feel more ill. The cell was a mess. Everything was dirty, everything stained, all filled with shadows and rust. No safe havens left to turn to, least of all within his own mind. And it did not stop, those fervent devotions whittling away his ability to hold back, lick by voracious lick. Shit, he was approaching the edge of orgasm and he didn’t want to get there, not with the pathetically submissive noises the other was making beneath him.

            The fact that he couldn’t stop it was the thing that tipped him over the edge. He railed against his bonds, he shuddered and squirmed, he tried his hardest not to let it happen and then, with a gasp, he painted the inside of Prompto’s mouth with hot semen.

            As soon as he had released his load, as soon as he fell slack in his bonds, he heard a gulp, followed by a slight choking noise. Then, sniffling. The noise tugged at his emotions; it was so raw, so troubled. Tears pricked his own tired, crusted eyes and he wanted to say _You didn’t have to do that._ But his chest, pulled tight by the restraints of the rig, was left too short of breath to allow more than a formless murmur. Below him, Prompto shifted, moved his delicate hands to rest upon thighs now quivering in the aftermath, and steeled himself as if preparing for something. Then - no, he was extending his tongue again, bringing it to his spent length, exacerbating the flesh already hypersensitive from release.

            He couldn’t stop Prompto from doing it. He had no choice but to hang there, panting and flinching as Prompto licked him clean.

            When the torturous sensation finally stopped, Prompto raised his head, gazed at him with those wide starry eyes. And he looked back, thinking that yes, back when he was in control of that body, that’s a look he would have reserved for Noctis.

            _Wrong, this is all wrong._

            Prompto started to speak, and, _fuck_ , he didn’t want to hear his voice again, he couldn’t bear it.

            ‘I’m sorry … I missed a bit…’

            _No, don’t apologise. Please don’t apologise._

            He wanted to call up words but only weary grunts of exertion came out. Prompto was still panicking, fretting and fussing beneath him.

            Gods above, how he just wanted to be left alone.

            ‘Stop … Stop it.’ His voice was weak, his breath short. Even in the still and quiet of the cell, it must have been hard to make out the words, because at first Prompto ignored him.

            Another few licks and he was done.

            ‘There. I’m sorry, I’ll stop. I didn’t want this to hurt you. I … I love you.’

            He _what?_

            Beneath him, Prompto cocked his head, as if aware he wasn’t being understood correctly. Then he repeated himself, his voice small and vulnerable.

            ‘Ardyn, I love you.’

            ‘Stop it.’

            ‘Ardyn. Please. I love you.’

            ‘Stop it!’

            ‘I lo-’

            ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ It didn’t matter that the claws of the rig dug into his chest, it didn’t matter that he could barely breathe. He forced himself to shout. And Prompto looked so confused, almost to the point of upset.

            ‘But … why?’

_Because Ardyn doesn’t deserve this._

‘I don’t deserve this,’ he said weakly.

            Prompto’s brow quirked up further.

            ‘You want me to hate you, instead?’

            At first, he kept silent. He watched the mockery of Prompto - and he had to think of him as such, for what was left of his sanity - shift out from loving obeisance to quietly-held rage. The eyebrows were the thing that changed the most - no longer upturned and questioning, but hard-lined and heavyset.

            ‘Y-yes,’ he got out at last, between tight breaths.

            ‘Hmm, hate you … hate you… Now, what _would_ I want to do to you?’ Prompto watched the ceiling, took a moment’s consideration. ‘You killed Luna. You hurt my friends. You … you turned me into … _this_.’ His voice shook. Evidence of his shame dripped from his eyes in clear streams, and the corner of his mouth in milky white.

            _Hurt the one who hurt you, Prompto._

            Maybe it would be good, to see this body suffer for its sins.

            It would be painful, but hey. Worth it.

            And so he uttered it like a prayer, his voice barely above a whisper.

            ‘Hurt me.’

            And was that - did he spy the smallest of smiles on Prompto’s face, there? Just for a second, it didn’t fit. But the second passed, and Prompto lapsed back into his submissive, jilted rage again.

            ‘Look at what you’ve done to me,’ Prompto said, and then he collapsed down to his knees once more, hands stroking along Ardyn’s body, fussing at his open belt. ‘You’ve ruined me, and I … I’ve tried, but I … can’t hurt you.’

_Is this what I sound like?_

            ‘All I can do … is worship you, and pray for your mercy.’

            _Gods, I’m hardly worth saving._

            ‘Why,’ he croaked out eventually.

            Prompto considered for a moment, rubbed the back of his neck. Then it appeared as if a sort of inner calm came over him. He closed his eyes, breathed in deep, listening to some hidden voice. Then he gazed up with such reverence, and said,

            ‘’Cos I’m an angel. _Your_ angel. And this is where I belong.’

            Ardyn couldn’t help it. Couldn’t _stand_ it. He began to weep. Not quietly, as he had done mere minutes ago, but loud and mournfully. The sound was like a puncture wound to the spell within the room, and Prompto snorted.

            ‘Hah, dude, relax. No need to get so serious on me.’ And just like that, the joker was back. That cheery everything’s-okay face. Prompto smirked as he took in Ardyn’s tortured expression, and he patted his thighs down and stood up, a swing in his step. Behind him, the cell bars shifted, becoming pale granitic pillars, and the orange glow from the measly light bulb softened, grew lighter by several shades until it was pure sunlight filtering in from the high dome above him. It was gradual, but it pained his eyes nonetheless, and at first, he closed them against it.

            But Prompto stroked along his face, and the touch forced him back into awareness. Prompto’s eyes searched his own, still so concerned, but somehow less deferential than before. His voice remained high and youthful, but a sterner quality had crept in at the edges.

            ‘Look. Your public awaits.’

            He tried to focus on the shimmering haze behind Prompto, but it was so indistinct and scratchy, like the snow on an old video tape recording. What was happening? Things were changing, shifting, but he couldn’t quite track the motion.

            And the noise. What was that? Whispering, hissing, the sound of human activity, and it was increasing by the second. Like being in a bar with the music turned low, like being in a classroom without the teacher present.

            The arms of the rig clinked into action, stretching out, pulling his wrists upward until held high above his head, and the strain was immense. His face was contorting into a grimace, and … _fuck_ , any more and the device was going to pull his tendons out. Ignoring the pull at his neck, he cast a frenzied gaze upward. Then he saw that it was no longer a rig, but chains that held his arms up above him. He was hanging with almost his full weight off the ground, his toes brushing the floor in only the barest of touches, just enough to tantalise.

            He started to recognise his surroundings. The room of pillars he had been left in before. The temple chamber was now occupying the space beyond the cell’s barred door, encroaching on the space like tidewater up a beach. The join was seamless. There was a sugary-sweet, sour scent in the air, something horribly unpleasant, something that made him want to let some fresh air into the room. Dark shapes just out of focus, and lines marring the white of the pillars, swinging slightly. The corpses from before. They were raised high, and below them was a throng of people, gathered as if come to gaze at a caged beast.

            After a moment, he realised they were gathered around him.

            Prompto held his chin up in a vicelike grip, forcing him to focus.

            ‘Come on, Ardyn, they’re all looking up to you. You like that, don’t you? Well. They _were_ looking up to you. Not so convinced about now, though. Now they’re just here for the show.’

            ‘Pro…’ He started to say the name, but his voice broke halfway through. He _couldn’t_ acknowledge this phantom before him as Prompto, no matter how much he looked the part.

            Too late, anyway. Prompto stepped back, and his face shifted, bones moving beneath the skin, reforming into something, some _one_ else. Blond hair turning as dark as shadow and falling nearly to his shoulders, soft jawline firming up and cheekbone widening, creating a gaunt that struck him as somehow familiar. And familiar, too, was the slight squaring-off of the chin. In almost every aspect, the man that emerged from Prompto’s form had a face he felt like he should _know_. He almost wanted to trust him, based on appearance alone, and it was only the discourteous scowl the man wore that made him hold back.

            When he finally placed it, his heart felt like it was being squeezed hard. Gods, this was so similar to how he imagined Noctis might look, given another ten years or so. Midnight hair, slightly frayed, the first greys starting to show.

            Given another thirty years, and this man before him might look like King Regis.

            And then, taking in the flyaway flick of the hair and the almond, heavy-lidded eyes, he thought, given another thousand, and it could be Ardyn.

            With a hallowed echo, a drumming started up at the back of his mind, and it seemed to permeate through to the rock behind him, until the whole angelic hall was a-thrum with the promise of danger. He wanted to ask who the familiar stranger was, but the name was just tickling the back of his throat, almost slipping out but not quite. Instead, he struggled, and tried not to whimper.

            _I know you … Tell me who you are. And why do you smile at me like that?_

The man with his night-blue hair slipped backward into the crowd, his gaze lingering, a snake eyeing its meal, determined to return later but in absolutely no hurry. Ardyn tracked him as best he could through the crowd, but all it took was one moment, obscured by a shawl and a wayward arm, and the familiar face vanished.

            He almost wanted him to come back, because the noises were starting to separate into distinct threads and finally, he understood. The people around him, they were clamouring for his death.

            Death to the traitor.

            Death to the murderer.

            Death to the tainted one.

            And behind the shouting and the malicious words, he could see a shadow shifting. Not the black-haired man, but something else, something even further back, something clinging to the walls and twirling ever higher, up to the high cupola. The daemon, the first daemon to enter him, that creature of swamps and murk, slithering up above in some strange sub-reality, watching the spectacle with bristling horror.

            And then, a worrying chill, and the room fell to hollow, precipitous murmurs. Someone new was entering.

            A stately figure, robes flowing like ribbons, all black and gold and decorated with sacred symbols, and as those beetle-black eyes darted his way, he recognised the man. The High Priest of the Heavenly Temple.

            _Himmelens Tempel,_ the name echoed in his head. It was such a beautiful name.

            As the man approached, soft-footed and listless as if slowing down time with every step, the dust from the sun’s rays caught on the gold embroidery and sparked in Ardyn’s eyes. He could have sworn there was a hymnal kicking up from the back of the room, but it was merely an illusion - the effect of hushed voices struggling to keep silent as the trial began - because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? A trial. _His_ trial. The priest’s presence was … strangely understated for the ostentatious robes he wore. Made him feel all the stronger for it. So strong, in fact, it made the daemon cagey, sticking to the highest arches, as if this holy man had the unique capacity to keep it at bay.

            When the High Priest finally reached him, stopping less than a foot away from his restrained form, he looked like he wanted to speak, but he kept his mouth closed, merely regarding him as though he was nothing more than livestock. A moment of scrutiny, then he turned his troubled, aged head away and spoke to the man next to him.

            ‘Is the Suzerain here?’

            A curt nod from the man beside him, and how had he not noticed it was Einar before now?

            No matter. Through the web of pain, he tried to keep his focus. Whatever was happening, it was too important to miss.

             For a moment, Einar turned toward Ardyn, a terse yet satisfied grin tweaking the corner of his lip. ‘You’d best prepare yourself, _Healer_. You know the Suzerain is a very jealous, capricious man. Not unlike yourself, truth be told.’ This comment was met with light snickering from some members of the crowd. Einar enjoyed the moment, then focussed on the Priest again. ‘I shall fetch him. The Trial must begin.’

            And the Judge vanished then, leaving his subordinates in their impeccably-clean robe-like suits standing guard before the throng of people. The High Priest fell into static, silent prayer, hands clasped and head bowed. Anticipation rose in the room like a standing wave.

            In the anxious moments in between, Ardyn took to wondering who the Suzerain could be. His mind was a fog - the word was so familiar, _suzerain_ , and he thought it meant _ruler_ , but he couldn’t be entirely sure. It was different from _king_ , he knew that much. And when he heard the word spoken, he felt power behind it. Reverence. Status. The mere mention of the man changed the dynamic of the room, and he didn’t want this spectacle of a trial to progress any further.

            There wasn’t much to do but wait.

            And, a while later, came a call that cut through the air, shocking everyone to attention.

            ‘Fæ!’

            He knew this. A word that meant livestock in the ancient tongue, but more appropriately for modern Solheim, _fool_. It was spoken loud and resonant, and it hit every corner of the room, acidly enough to make even the shadows crawl. Ardyn could have laughed at the insult, but instead he recoiled from it, because there was something unsavoury about that voice. And there, walking up through the centre of the crowd, came a man, familiar and dark and with an unmistakeable sway to his step.

            The black-as-midnight hair. The regal face, the insincere expression. The man that could be Noctis, simultaneously ten years in the future and a thousand years removed, the same in almost every way but for a slight difference in the expression. He was back, and this time he had shifted entirely out of Prompto’s clothes. Now he was more ridiculously-dressed than the High Priest, all cape brooches and buckles and glyph-like embroidery. His lips parted, his smile all sly like a fox, his eyebrows lilting up in idle amusement.

            ‘I kid, I kid, my dear Vassal. But it’s amusing to see how well you react to it.’ That voice, now, so lyrical, so off-kilter, swinging through various registers like a wayward ship at sea. He seemed unstable, and childish, as if he had never had cause to answer to anyone in his entire life. As a result, he was one of the few who wasn’t afraid to stare directly at Ardyn as he strode forward, and for a moment they felt like brothers, like lovers, like arch-enemies. So closely intertwined, but with so much roiling frustration beneath the surface. And so, Ardyn stared back, bristling in some emotion between anger and fear. Fresh sweat began to gather in pores already clogged by days of torture and strain.

            Einar followed in the Suzerain’s wake, and when he had come to a standstill, Einar took up the left side, while the High Priest stayed at the right.

            The Judge, the Priest and the Suzerain. It sounded like the start of a bad joke.

            Ardyn couldn’t hold back a snort.

            ‘Funny, is it?’ The Suzerain’s gaze pierced his own. He had no need to say more, he just let the threat settle. There was something so _off_ about him, so disconcerting. His face was tinged with the vestiges of madness, and the whole room seemed to know it. Nobody spoke. Einar waited, calm as a cat. The High Priest continued his prayers. With a sigh, the Suzerain rubbed his hands together, and lazily stroked back his black hair. Every action seemed somehow too improper for such an important figure. He was such a contrast to Einar’s clean-cut officiousness, and to the High Priest’s calm wisdom. ‘Let’s start then, shall we? Ah, what’s a trial without an introduction though? How rude of me.’ A brief hand-wave towards the sidelines. ‘Scribes - note this down. I, Izunia Lucis Caelum, Suzerain of Solheim’s Kveldslyset principality, declare the trial of the Accursed begun.’

            _Izunia?_

The part of him that was still not quite Ardyn flinched at the name. _But wait, I’m Ardyn Izunia, right? I’m…_

_No, I’m not._

Think about what was said at the very start. _Your name is Ardyn Lucis Caelum, and now your torture begins._

That was right. Ardyn Izunia had always been a lie, hadn’t it? He’d just … he’d just never assumed Izunia would be someone _real_.

            Again, came the sensation of another, alien feeling within him, and he knew intimately that Izunia, the bastard, was stealing _his_ name. Not the other way around, no, that would come thousands of years later, when he had need of hiding his origins from dear Noctis.

            ‘Lucis is _my_ title,’ he hissed. ‘You … you can’t take that from me!’

            ‘Come now, come now … oh, but I can.’ Izunia turned to face the crowd, gesturing ostentatiously. ‘The Lord Bahamut spoke to me in a dream, and he bestowed upon me knowledge most divine. You see, since _you,’ -_ and here he pointed at Ardyn in a terribly offhand manner - ‘my dear jester, my dear pretender _,_ failed the proving, it falls to me to continue Ascension. I will inherit the throne. I will be the one to bring the light to Solheim now.’

            ‘No. No!’ He searched for words. ‘You … I tried! I … tried…’

            A sharp reprimand from Einar.

            ‘The subject is not permitted to speak over the Suzerain.’

            He fell silent. Izunia smirked, and continued his brazen speech.

            ‘To judge you for your crimes, we hold your deeds against the _Lex Talionis_. Einar, please.’ A hand at the ready, and the Judge obeyed, placing a sheaf of papers there. ‘Well now, let’s see. We begin with the desecration of the Heavenly Temple. Entering while under the influence of daemons, failing to observe the proper purification rites. And, oh, it continues with … what’s this, now?’

            He wished the man would cut the faux-surprise. Izunia clearly knew the full extent of what had happened. He was making the whole affair sound like a farce. But perhaps that was the point. Ardyn bit down his anger, tried to get control of his pained breathing, and continued to listen.

            ‘You were unable to carry out your healing duties, hmm … claiming _overload …_ well, that’s just daemon contamination, isn’t it? Isn’t it so? And lo, you instructed your followers to share the load. Of course, they couldn’t handle it – they hadn’t been selected by the Lord, after all - and they all perished at your hands. And now, the temple suffers ritual impurity from the things that came to pass beneath this hallowed roof. Well. Seems as though things got out of control.’ Izunia reached the end of the paragraph and sighed, lowering the papers. When he spoke next, it was with no small amount of jubilation.

            ‘Ardyn Lucis Caelum, you have failed in your duty as Oracle, and you have _not_ banished the Starscourge that we might be healed. You have killed thirty members of the clergy, and countless numbers of the laity through your indiscretion. According to the Lex Talionis, you must meet retribution for this sin.’

            The High Priest interrupted his flow to whisper something at his ear. A nod. The smallest of smiles.

            ‘Right. But first. You are _unclean_ , and you must be purified.’ Izunia clapped his hands together, clearly delighted.

            Ardyn felt the muscles in his face tighten. The background chatter began to rise again, a mixture of excitement and apprehension, and he wondered if the members of the crowd were relatives of the deceased. But then, surely, if they were, they would have reacted more viscerally to the corpses strung up around him. Unless … was he the only one who could see them?

            There was no time to wonder further. He was hoisted fully into the air at the instruction of Izunia. The wounds on his back pulled apart under the tension and a sticky mixture of blood and plasma leaked out in trickles down to his belt.

            A sickening snap. His shoulders, finally giving out.

            He yelled out. Hung limp.

            Somehow the light had faded from the room. Only a small sliver of gold hitting his body in a wild splash, while darkness gathered everywhere else. People’s eyes looked like feral cats at night, glinting at him from soft shadow. He was surrounded on all sides by predators.

            Einar came up to him now, a small cadre of Talionis underlings at his side. Together they pulled at his clothes until his upper body was bared, every move rough and humiliating, bringing agony to his dislocated, limp shoulders. Fabric now hung torn and useless around his beltline, all but for his scarf, which now hung round his neck like a stole, a profane parody of a liturgical vestment. He felt the eyes of the entire room settle upon him in satisfaction. There was something about being so exposed like this, under the eyes of the public, under the scrutiny of so many. It was upsetting, and he wanted to hide from their prying, hungry eyes.

            The physical discomfort made everything so much worse. Cool air stung the lacerations on his skin, a sensation that only worsened when Einar clasped his throat, swung him backward against the chain’s pull, stretching the broken skin all the more. The thick central nerve that ran through his shoulders tingled and pinched awkwardly, the joints still out of place, and he couldn’t hide his wincing. Einar didn’t miss a thing, that insidious tone creeping back in as he whispered wryly in his ear, his voice such a cold, straight-laced contrast to the mad Suzerain’s.

            ‘We could always just leave you here. Leave your arms to deaden and necrotise. You won’t be needing them any more, after all.’

            Although it was quietly said, every other face in the room seemed so smug and impatient, as if they had heard every word. It was clear enough, anyway. Everyone knew how this trial was going to go.

            Panic hit him properly then, the fear of being _left to rot,_ and Ardyn tried to respond, but all that was coming out were pained cries. He was aware he was watching something that could no longer be changed, but he willed his body to stop rebelling all the same. It hurt. Hurt his chest, made his eyes so dizzy they pricked with little black pinpoints, and threatened to cast him into unconsciousness. He didn’t want to face this pain.

            When Einar was done with his taunting, he turned to the High Priest, who had stayed a few steps back throughout the whole affair, and he bowed his head, crossed his arms, received a blessing. It came in the form of murmured words, and a hand hovering inches from his forehead worked well enough, and the priest clicked his tongue in satisfaction, permitted the Judge to rise.

            Ardyn recognised the moves well, and when he did, he had no idea how he could have once forgotten. Receiving the memory felt like watching winter spices - cloves, cinnamon - leaking through muslin cloth to mull the wine. A slow unfurling, a pungent and heady concoction. And he understood. What he was witnessing was ritual purification. It was essential after coming into contact with a prisoner. A reminder of his profane, sinful status.

            ‘My dear Judge, are you quite done?’ It sounded like Izunia was growing impatient. Clicking his heels on the floor, hand on one hip, sharp eyes idling into some middle distance. When Einar finally nodded, the lackadaisical would-be king stepped forward, smiling and holding out his hand as though offering Ardyn a dance. ‘Perfect,’ Izunia sang, ‘and well, look, it seems they’ve already done a number on you. But they’re missing something very important. Guards - if you please.’ And his hand swung to the side, and he waited for one of the sentries to bring something forth.

            A spear. Long and ornate and tinged with gold plating. Light seemed to originate from within, to shimmer out in a dusty haze. The closer the thing got to Ardyn’s tainted skin, the more his hair bristled, the more his stomach retched. Every cell in his body, trying to flee.

            _‘_ _Imitatio Dei,’_ Izunia said, his voice a melodic thrill. ‘Just look at us, the unwitting instruments of a larger divine plan. What else can we do but follow His word? Bahamut tells me to purify, and so … and so, I must.’

            The spear pressed against his side, sharp and unforgiving, denting the skin with the threat of spilling his guts. For an agonising moment there was nothing but cold, raw fear shivering through him – _surely Izunia wouldn’t -_ and then the pop of skin puncturing as the spear’s pointed end drove in. The push was all ruthless precision, probing through soft tissue, nestling up in the tender folds of his gut. He screamed in agony, blinding sharpness searing his vision, encompassing his senses entirely, and then, distantly, he heard something wet and sloppy hit the ground with a disgusting thwack. Shuddering, looking down, he saw blood and bile decorate the pristine marble floor, so dark it was near-on pitch black. Far above in the rafters, his dear daemon, his firstborn, if he could call it such a thing, was screaming, and somewhere held in the back of his ribcage, so were the other, lesser spirits. Shivering and rasping and clawing at his insides, trying to retain their precious lifeblood.

            How much was spilling out?

            He simply didn’t understand _why_.

            ‘Is this … not sacrilege? Spilling … my blood … here?’ It was hard, so hard, to get the words out, but he had to ask.

            ‘My dear Vassal, this shrine was no longer considered sacred from the moment your followers lost their lives. And it will never be so again, least of all when we are through with you.’

            Adrenaline had overcome him, and he somehow found the strength to shout, to argue.

            ‘So … so you’ll send Kveldslyset to the grave, will you? Hah!’

            Izunia merely smiled.

            ‘Kveldslyset no longer. I’ll sink this place to the ground until it’s just a pool of dying light, and what remains of your followers can sing their vespers to the temple ruins. Meanwhile, I’ll take the Seat of Solheim to Cavaugh, and build the seat of a new empire there. One with hope, one filled with promise!’

            For some reason, this tickled him. It sounded so daft, so over-the-top, and the dissonance struck him. Before he knew it, he was laughing, low and choked up and rumbling. It tore at the wound at his side, at the lacerations on his back. Made his lungs heave. But he wasn’t in control, and it wouldn’t stop. The same guttural, repetitive chuckle, over and over.

            He tried desperately to hold it back, because he didn’t want to bleed out any more. But too late, it tore too much and his nerves spasmed deep inside. A yell. More blinding pain. An attempt at a laugh again, much to the chagrin of the dear old Suzerain, who fixed him with a look of disdain.

            ‘What a disappointment you are.’

            The Suzerain, his Lord, sweeping in closer to him now, and for a moment the magician behind the curtain could be seen: his eyes flashing back to Prompto’s then to Ardyn’s then back to Izunia’s again. Hand reaching out to his stuck side, delving prying fingers into the wound.

_Fingers digging in deeper, and he didn’t want them to, because then another part of Ardyn would be inside him._

            A memory from when he wasn’t Ardyn. A memory from the snow. He could see it suddenly, clear as day, and he wept. Still laughing, still crying, so confused because now he had lost who he was and all that was left was pain.

            The fingers twisted where they hooked into his flesh, and his bitter, teary laugh turned into a yell.

            ‘Too loud,’ Izunia muttered, and he stripped the tattered silk scarf from round Ardyn’s neck, bundling the thin fabric up into his mouth, making him splutter. He held it there, pressed in with his thumb, while he snapped his finger at something behind them, speaking to one of the guards. ‘Come on with it.’ Seconds later, a slim length of chain appeared in his hand and he held it taut, then cinched it between his teeth, clamping the scarf in place to form a crude gag. A harsh clang as the chain links were fastened at the back of his neck.

            He strained his neck. Tried to move his tongue. Couldn’t enunciate. Couldn’t even laugh.

            ‘Better,’ Izunia murmured.

            Then Izunia retracted his grip, and watched as the blood and bile continued to spill out. The noise - the noise all around him was growing once more. Things were falling out of focus. It was harder to keep track of Izunia’s ingratiating face and that would have been fine, but again, things were starting to shift and Izunia smiled wide like the jester he accused Ardyn of being, before his bones began to once again shift in that disturbing, cracking manner.

            For a moment, Ardyn wondered if this was the moment where Izunia would shift back into Prompto, and the whole horrifying spectacle would end. But no, Izunia seemed to rise above the crowd, coming to stop beside the corpse opposite, the woman with her once-neat black hair all a-tangle. _Gentiana_.

            Izunia drifted sideways, his form echoing with a purple shimmer as if warping, and he dissolved into Gentiana’s lifeless body. The pallor of her skin didn’t change from its deathly, decaying hue, but her skin shivered, as if thousands of insects were running amok beneath it. The very sight made his own skin crawl and his heart hammered against his own ribcage.

            Then Gentiana’s neck gave out an almighty crack, and she snapped up to look at him, her dead eyes piercing his soul. He watched, and issued a muffled cry, and a deep, alien voice began to speak from her mouth.

            ‘Gaze upon her,’ it said. ‘Yes, it was terrible, the things you had to suffer. But what you did to her was your choice. Look how you ruined her.’

            _No,_ he wanted to say. He bucked against his restraints, the blood loss and the mental stress making his muscles contract and shudder against his will. His shoulders, somehow pained and numb at the same time. Unbearable. His eyes shone, pleading, and Gentiana’s soulless face grimaced.

            ‘And yes, you reached the end of your tether,’ she said huskily. ‘And so? Was it worth it? She’s dead.’

            While the dead woman taunted him, the guards from before reached forward to still his spasming body. One of them - the burly man with the stern face and the hard sunset eyes, held him fast and now - his vision span - hands travelled down, dragging over the whip marks and the spear wound, mercilessly pulling the skin, then delving deeper, worrying the tender skin around his groin. Hard touches on sacred ground. Copping a feel while keeping him still. And everyone … everyone was watching, and _fuck,_ why was this happening?

 _No, no, stop,_ he tried to say, but the gag prevented it. The amber eyed man continued his fondling, his needless harassment. Gentiana’s head cracked backward and the spirit left her body with a cackle that echoed in the alcoves. The Judge and the Priest stood back and watched, the right and left hand of the would-be King.

            Hands on his skin, and as before, he sobbed into the touch, hating every second, but with no other option than to endure.

            _Just endure. It’s all you have left._

The touch continued while the scene before him began to shift. The crowd fuzzed out into obscurity like distant clumps of snow. His arms were no longer held by chains, it was stricter than that, more…

            He forced his aching eyes to see. There was metal now, instead of granite and marble. Grey instead of white. A musty, inorganic smell instead of decaying vanilla. Iron bars. Factory walls and industrial colours, rushing in, erasing the seams that connected him to Solheim. He was back on the Y-frame. Back in the machine.

            And the gag, he realised that was still there the instant he tried to speak. The awful chintzy material invading his mouth. Ardyn’s scarf. _His_ scarf.

            Gods, everything was a blur. He wanted to be sick.

            He looked up. The clock was still stuck at three a.m., the second hand ticking back and forth, back and forth, going nowhere.

            How much of what happened was real?

            Were his guts still spilled? A labouring glance at the floor told him no. Did he have the lacerations on his back? Sweat was dripping down and it was stinging, so maybe. Probably. It was hard to tell when everything hurt.

            As before, Prompto was now the one feeling him up, grasping below the belt, but this time, with his hands rather than his mouth. He soon ceased his harassment, and walked upfront of the rig, stared at his captive, face full of faux-concern. His blond hair was even messier and dirtied than it had been before, and his Crownsguard attire was even more stained. He looked such an odd mix between self-assured, cocky, and submissive. And when he spoke, his voice sounded right, but his words were not.

            ‘Back with us, my love?’

            A soft stroke of a finger beneath the chin and _how dare you, how dare you echo that pose? That action?_ Memory jolted his brain and a few key words entered his mind. Caravan. Cauthess. Road trip.

            He struggled against his bonds. He could do nothing.

            ‘Shall I let you speak?’ Prompto paused before him, mouth open, a hand tantalisingly close to the scarf. A second more of staring, of toying with him, then he untied the ends, pulled the fabric away.

            Ardyn gasped.

            ‘Please … help me…’

            Prompto’s brow furrowed, his face stricken with distress.

            ‘ _Help_ you? You’re asking me to help you? After what you did?’ His pitch rose, and with every breath he was seething. ‘No. You were meant to _suffer.’_ With a strained cry, he summoned his gun. The crystalline armiger light around him was red, but that hardly mattered now. Prompto was furious, and his eyes sparked tears. His jaw was set tight as he readied the weapon, and he didn’t give it a moment’s pause. There was a flash of light as the gunshot echoed and for a moment, Prompto’s eyes flashed amber. His scream was harrowed and murderous as he took the shot, and Ardyn was almost proud.

            Right on target, shattering ribs and piercing straight to the heart. It _hurt_ like he could not believe. The shock of it - fireworks bursting inside his chest with unrestrained fury. Wild light shattering his bones, heat evaporating his blood, the sheer force splaying his guts out - _for real, this time -_ and he grappled desperately for a hold on his life but it was fading far too fast.

            _At least let the pain end…_

A short, triumphant bark of a laugh from Prompto before him, then the boy drew close, eyes more amber than ever. The line between who was Prompto and who was Ardyn was so faint now, so scrubbed-out by this relentless pageantry, that it hardly mattered to think on it. He just wanted it to end. And now Prompto sang at him sweetly, his voice tumbling from high and youthful, to musical and mad, to rich and velvety. A mixture of everything he didn’t want to think about.

            _‘Imitatio Dei. Katharsis._ That’s what this is. So die now, you sorry creature, and enter into the fold with me.’

            The air around him condensed, his eyelids grew heavy, and he could hardly resist the call. Within seconds, he fell under.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't unbuckle your seatbelts yet, we have two more chapters left to go.


	9. The Gunner's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Prompto makes a connection with a daemon of the Old World, and bargains with it to discover certain things about Ardyn's past.

It was the sensation of grit clogging his nostrils that brought him awake, his airways seizing up in a stoppered breath that made him choke. At first he was confused; something hard lay against his cheek, scratchy and rough, holding him down. He fidgeted, tried to push it away, but it wasn’t working. He lacked the strength, and whatever was on top of him was too heavy.

            For a long time, he didn’t move.

            Then the grit grew overwhelming and he sneezed, sucking in breath sharply in the aftermath because everything _hurt_. He felt like an idiot seconds later, because the jolt made him realise that the thing against his cheek was not some restraint or heavy rock above him. It was the floor.

            He was lying on the ground. He had just been too weak to move.

            It took some effort to force his hands up to cover his nose and mouth, but when he did, he saw the familiar black bands round his wrists, and gasped. Slim fingers reaching up to check his fringe, pulling a strand in front of his eyes. Golden.

            _I’m me, oh god, I’m me again._

            Alone, face-down in the dust, Prompto cried. The feeling of being Ardyn was seeping out of him, bit by nauseous bit, poison bleeding from a wound. As he became aware of his limbs shifting, he felt too unwieldy, too big for his body, too alien.

            When he was all cried out, he forced himself onto his back, ignoring the odd twinge in his chest. This room was unfamiliar – no metal rig, no shelving units nor canisters nor iron bars blocking the exit. And he was alone, with nothing but silence around him. For a moment, Prompto allowed himself to relax, lying on his back, looking up at the high stone ceiling. Dust shimmered down like crystal shards, and if it wasn’t for the grime that lay beyond those delicate particles, it would have been quite beautiful.

            Prompto’s head was spinning. There was a huge, tangled mass at the centre of his mind that he was trying very hard not to approach, because the … dream, the vision or whatever it was he had just been though, it was too overwhelming. The instant any part of his consciousness neared it, he began to feel dizzy, like he was being set adrift. He didn’t like the helplessness. Better just to lie on the ground for now.

            And this was fine. Lying there was … almost peaceful.

            Except for the fact that his chest hurt. At first, it was only a foggy ache, as with the rest of his body, and it had been bearable. But as he regained more and more of his senses, it grew sharper. It … honestly, it felt like a shotgun had burst over it at incredibly close range. Had that happened? He couldn’t remember. At any rate, it smarted, and it felt oddly depressed, as if it had become hollow. A memory of the concave shape of the Disc of Cauthess seared itself into Prompto’s mind, and then came nausea, the sense of something being terribly wrong, working its way up from his stomach.

            Tentatively, he raised a hand to his chest.

            The usual bulk of pectoral muscle was no longer there on the left side. Just a gap, with the frayed edges of skin and spongy, soft tissue and something that felt uncannily like metal.

            He probed hesitantly, trying not to hyperventilate, and his fingertips hit a nub of exposed rib bone.

            ‘Agh!’ Fuck, that was painful. He really shouldn’t have done that.

            Prompto waited for the pain to simmer down, then he strained his neck, tried to look down at his chest instead. A faint red glow pulsed softly back at him from within that broken hollow of a chest. It was ticking almost imperceptibly, not like clockwork, more like electrical relays in a machine. Wasn’t this what Magitek cores looked like?

            ‘Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!’ He realised he was breathing shallowly, trying not to disturb his chest. It didn’t feel like anything was beating in there, but somehow he was still breathing, still moving.

            _How the hell am I still alive?_

            He remembered snippets of what had come before, and it was all he could do to quell the tide of memories rushing back. Ardyn had taken his face, had raised his gun, threatened him. _Shot_ him, and by the gods, it had hurt like hell.

Possibilities span in his head. It could be that Ardyn really did kill him on the cross. Shot straight through his heart and just … replaced it with this nightmare fuel.

            But that didn’t explain why he was now in a strange room, with Ardyn nowhere in sight. Would the man really leave him alone, unrestrained? Not likely.

            _Okay, so we have to be in a dream. My nightmare, this time. Ardyn, you bastard._

It horrified him just how close he had come to empathising with the man, over the course of that torturous vision. Figured Ardyn wasn’t one for sympathy – punishing him the instant he got close to understanding. But that was fine, it was better to hate him.

            He wasn’t given much time to be angry, because his fretting had attracted attention. A new presence in the room, a voice, scratching out in the darkness. The syllables sounded alien in the air, but his brain made sense of them somehow, translated them into something he could understand.

            ‘ _Don’t look. Don’t think about it.’_

He knew that voice. His stomach lurched horribly. The shadow at his back – Ardyn’s daemon. But still no Ardyn in sight, and so he cast his gaze back to his hands, so rapidly it sent a sharp throb of pain into his aching head. No, it was okay, he was still himself. He was still Prompto.

            Instead of looking at the creature, he closed his eyes.

            A hiss from the shadows. The daemon sounded pleased.

            _See? I remembered. You don’t like being looked at._

            He couldn’t keep his eyes closed forever, though. It gave him too much space to think, and just knowing that this creature was beside him was unnerving enough. Just like if there was a bug in the room, he wanted to see it, to know where it stood. And he had to _do_ something. He couldn’t stay here.

            So he opened his eyes, trying to focus on the wall opposite as he strained to get up. His chest still hurt like a landmine had burst over it, and he winced loudly with the effort.

            With no warning, the daemon leapt forward, claws on his shoulders, limbs tangled in his. Too close. Too much touching. He shrieked, but all the daemon did was pull him to his feet before backing off, making a noise that sounded like it was shushing him. It hovered near the back of the room, cagey, watching him, looking vaguely concerned, if that was even possible. Prompto’s legs shook as he steadied himself against the wall and he gasped out, ‘Gods, don’t … don’t do that, please…’

            The daemon merely hissed in reply.

            Right. It probably thought it was doing him a favour.

            He wanted to ask where they were, and more importantly, _where was Ardyn,_ but a harsh clang from some floor above them sounded. Distant shouts. Not exactly friendly sounding.

            ‘What … who’s up there?’

            The daemon did not reply immediately. It gathered its prickly black limbs and in a couple of sharp, jerky movements, it was at the door. Its yellow eyes narrowed, and its voice rasped out all scratchy as chalk.

            _‘Run, clone.’_

            He bristled at the moniker. But he chose not to contradict the daemon, instead pushing his emotions down and following its lead, breaking out into the main corridor and running as fast as he could, because if this creature was scared, he didn’t want to risk his chances with whatever was on its way.

            The strange building he found himself in, it was both like Zegnautus Keep and not. It had the griminess, the dirt and the disarray, but there was no familiarity in the objects and markings all around him. There, something that looked like a gas canister, but instead of EXINERIS, it bore strange glyphs that looked like the runes found around havens. Old language. And there, down that next corridor, instead of the minimalist sliding doors of the Keep, was a stone archway that reminded him more of the Monument of the Tidemother in Altissia. Any sliding doors he did encounter were made of marble, and they moved like the entrances to the Lucian Tombs. Everything was high-tech, but also _ancient._

            Prompto panicked. Was he still in Solheim?

            He didn’t want to meet that sadistic Judge again, nor the mad would-be king Izunia. So, like the daemon, he kept to the shadows. Sounds of distant activity broke through the silence every so often, and Prompto’s electric heart skipped a cycle each time. He still didn’t know how the hell he was able to run – he should be floored by the abuse that had rained down upon him, hole in his chest notwithstanding – but he could feel the difference in his veins. As if his blood had been replaced by thick treacle, sinking through muscle fibre and sinew instead of freshly flowing. It was working well enough for the time being, but what if he pushed too hard and just collapsed? There was no way of telling when the device in his chest would give out.

_Like your old running practice, and like the daemon says: Don’t think about it._

_Just put the next foot forward._

            Although the shouts and cries at their backs were a constant accompaniment, they had only one encounter with a human being during their escape. A woman on security detail by the looks of it, who Prompto barrelled into headfirst when turning a corner blind. She was fast; a sword was at his throat before he could blink. Summoning his weapons from the Armiger failed spectacularly, and before he could stop the daemon from stepping in, it had torn the security guard to shreds with nary a second thought. He was left with the uncomfortable feeling of owed gratitude, because it would not have been difficult for the daemon to leave him to her mercy and continue on alone.

            There had to be something it wanted him to see. Or, failing that, something it wanted from him.

            They emerged from the building into a patch of vegetation that must have once been lush. A weird mix of pine needles and banana leaves, of silvery birch with its paper-thin bark, and candletree with leaves all saucepan-like and thick. He had only seen this strange mixture of tropical and taiga plants in one other location; the temperate rainforest of the Vesperpool. Only, here, it seemed like some kind of war had taken place. The trees were broken and scarred, the canopy interrupted by debris, leaves blackened at the edges. At their backs, the skyline of a stone city, and above them, through the canopy, the dotted points of stars in a deep blue sky.

            It was a beautiful sight, standing amid all this quiet desolation. Almost enough for him to catch his breath. And yet, his stomach still felt sour and his pulse still raced, because he didn’t want to think about the Vesperpool, much less be somewhere that reminded him of it. Not the smell of humid, spongy soil, not the scent of medicinal plants and waterlilies hanging in the air like a curse. He didn’t want it.

            The daemon crouched in the murky water to his left, looking very much at home in the scene. Prompto still wasn’t feeling any immediate danger off it, so he swallowed his fears and he waited, half-obscured by the foliage at the water’s edge. There were lights flickering in the city. Those people were probably still out for blood. The way the security guard had been dressed, the rounded vowels of her surprised cry, that familiar accent … he was reminded of the people who had rallied for Ardyn’s death in the circular chamber.

            With the lesser of two evils caught in his crosshairs, Prompto took the initiative.

            ‘I … don’t know who they are,’ he whispered to the daemon, ‘but I don’t want them to find us. Please.’

            Something approaching a grin crossed the creature’s face. It clicked its tongue, ending with a sickening slapping noise, and slipped out of the water, rushing through the half-burned undergrowth. A tendril waving in the air was enough of a sign for him to follow.

            And follow he did, scrambling through the swamp forest with one hand covering the hole in his chest, praying that no dirt would get in.

           

It must have been an hour later when they eventually stopped. The moon was still high in the sky — it had barely moved — and yet they had made it all the way to the thicket near the foot of the mountains. It was no small distance. Above them, the skies were mostly clear, and yet around them, small flakes of snow had begun to fall in the temperate rainforest. Such dissonance, but Prompto was used to that by now.

            The daemon had slowed to a stop near an old campfire pit. A log lay on its side next to the pit, and the protective wall of a rock shielded them from view. This would do.

            Prompto sighed, letting his weight sag. He was still confused about how he had been able to exert himself for so long with hardly any negative effects, but now, there were the faintest traces of aching in his shoulders. Finally, some aftereffects from being strapped to that damn rig. It hurt, but it felt somehow validating. He rubbed his shoulders, glancing round at their surroundings.

            ‘Is this place safe?’

            The question led to a sharp hiss from the daemon. Prompto didn’t understand at first, and he tried another tack.

            ‘Will they find us here?’

            Another seething noise. Then a response.

            _‘Too many questions. Stop asking, stop asking…’_

            Prompto relented. He figured this camp was safe enough to rest a while, so he crouched down and tried to get the fire going. He didn’t have much luck, he was no Gladio, and after many minutes, the daemon cut in and sparked dark energy into the air, lighting it for him.

            _Fine. Show-off._

The cool night air warmed a little, and Prompto started to relax his guard. He sat on the log while the daemon took to the shallow, murky puddle nearby.

 _Imitatio Dei._ Those last words spoken to him before his awakening in the stone room rang in his head. The vision of being shot by Ardyn, who had taken his form while he took Ardyn’s, passed under his eyelids like a flash of lightning. The afterimage, seared in sharply. Was this Ardyn’s shallow attempt at finding his own salvation? Or just another power-trip?

            _Become like God. Emulate that power. Reach that divinity._

Vesperpool. Shrine. Empire. Those three words, those three locations. All attempts to exercise some divine right. And Prompto, caught in the middle, a pawn and nothing more. Marked from birth.

            But … wasn’t Ardyn marked from birth, too?

            He seethed sharply, attracting a mote of attention from the daemon. He was careful to keep still, then the daemon went back to its state of rumination, and so did he.

He really wanted to know where they were, what was happening, who those people chasing them were. He had plenty of ideas, but knowing the truth might give more context to the nightmarish visions Ardyn had just put him through. And besides, he’d had enough of being kept in the dark.

            ‘I want to know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m … I’m really glad you saved me, but I’m pretty lost right now. I have no idea what’s happening. I just want … I dunno. Some sense of where I am.’

            The daemon considered. After a moment of gazing into the fire, it blinked those pale yellow eyes and spoke.

            _‘We play a game,’_ it suggested. _‘You ask a question. You state it like truth. I will let you know if you are right.’_

            ‘Okay. And if it’s not true?’

            _‘For every guess you get wrong, I get to take a piece of you.’_

            Prompto thumbed gingerly around the open wound on his chest. ‘What, like my heart?’

            The daemon hissed.

            _‘Deeper.’_

            His first thought was sex, in no small part because it was what he had come to expect of anything associated with Ardyn. But he wondered if that wasn’t what the daemon meant by this, and suddenly Prompto realised he didn’t care what the daemon took. It was a reckless thought, but so much had been taken already. How much worse could it get?

            He crouched round the fire, trying not to disturb his chest too much as he leaned in for some warmth. The daemon snickered and shifted at the campfire’s borders, another flickering shadow to add to those cast by the flames.

            ‘Okay. I’ll play.’

            The daemon rose from the water, shaking off crackling limbs and coming to rest closer to the campfire. It watched him hungrily, too eager and too expectant. He stretched as much as he dared with the thing so close to him, and he made his first guess, remembering to present it like a statement and not a question.

            ‘This isn’t Gralea.’

            That one was kind of obvious. It earned a quiet nod of assent from the daemon, and Prompto continued.

            ‘This is Solheim.’

            The daemon nodded, and something new shone from its hollow eyes.

            ‘After the Astral War.’

            A twitch, a hiss that made his hairs prickle. _Wrong_. In a flash the daemon was in front of his face and he yelped. It latched on to him, and it didn’t seem to care where it placed its limbs just so long as it held him tight. He fell backwards, hitting soft earth with a thud. Then, hollow lamplike eyes meeting his own. A tendril unfurling like a tongue from its mouth, slithering between his lips, pushing into tender flesh, forcing its way to the back of his throat but not stopping there, delving deeper, running right into his core. And all the while, the tendrils pulsed, filling his mouth with their growing width. And, with the pulsing, the sense of being violated. Ardyn had forced himself upon him so many times that Prompto almost started kissing back. For fucking shame.

            The daemon didn’t seem to mind, in fact, it made a deep crooning sound at the tender touches. Then it took what it had come for – this time not secreting liquid into his body as it had done at the snow-capped shrine, but drawing something out of him, as if the tentacle had become a medical drain. Tears leaked from Prompto’s eyes and he clenched his fists – the sucking sensation deep in the core of his body was so different from anything he had felt before, and it was not pleasant.

            With a sickening slurp, the daemon pulled its tentacle out, gathering its murky form into one mass and smacking its various appendages together, enjoying the little piece of … whatever it was that it had sucked out of him. The force of the invasion had him shaking, and the daemon responded in an oddly sympathetic fashion, flicking the hair out of his eyes, and stroking along his cheek where tears fell. Was it wiping them away?

 _‘Doesn’t hurt,’_ it said, repeating the words over.

            _It does,_ he thought. _It does, but how do I tell a creature like you that?_

            It touched him softly again. Just a stroke along his collarbone, thankfully nothing more. And then, at long last, it relented, and drew back.

            In the aftermath of the exchange, Prompto felt oddly powerful, despite the nausea that bubbled up his throat, despite the fact that it felt like he had lost part of his shine. This was abuse he could cope with. Unlike with Ardyn, this daemon seemed to follow the rules it set. And it was horribly unforgiving about boundaries, personal space, _contact_ (was that where Ardyn had learned it from?) but at the same time, it seemed a little shy. Unused to humans. Almost tentative.

            He could work with that.

            The daemon wasn’t making any move to get off him, and so he just let the daemon sit on top of him; it was easier that way. Never mind that it called up unpleasant things he’d rather not recall, and never mind that it made him tremble. _Don’t think about it_. _Continue._

            ‘Okay.’ He thought about the razed grasses, the evidence of fighting, the half-destroyed environment. Half-destroyed, but not completely. ‘This isn’t after the Astral War. This is during the Astral War.’

            This time, the daemon snickered away and nodded. Prompto breathed out with as much measure as he could manage.

            ‘Solheim was Eos,’ Prompto murmured, and he wasn’t really guessing here, he was just thinking aloud to himself, but the daemon nodded all the same. ‘Solheim was Eos, and so this, this is the Vesperpool. We’re in the Risorath Basin.’ A kind of heady fervour gripped him, and he remembered the words the suzerain Izunia had spoken to Ardyn during the trial. ‘Kveldslyset is the Vesperpool. Pools of evening light!’

            The daemon hissed again, but this time it was a sound of wonder, of deep-seated satisfaction. It hissed, then crooned at him, leaning in to stroke his hair back toward the nape of his neck, and it took all Prompto’s willpower not to shy away from the touch. This was an important revelation.

            ‘So … why are you the only daemon that shows itself.’ He didn’t say it like a question, he was aware it didn’t like that. ‘I know he’s absorbed more than just you inside him.’

            The daemon cocked its head and waited, a tendril running softly across Prompto’s shoulder. It didn’t seem impatient, and so Prompto relaxed as much as he was able under the circumstances.

            Time to guess.

            ‘You’re the first one he absorbed, I … I know that. Okay. Wait, let me think.’ He warded the daemon off with an open palm, hoping for a little more time. It was graciously given to him. ‘Ardyn is the only one who understands you,’ Prompto said at length.

            A hiss of dissatisfaction. _Wrong._

            Prompto flinched as the creature pressed itself flush against him again, forcing its tongue – _easier to call it tongue than tentacle –_ down his throat once again to take a little more of what he could only assume was his spirit. Again, the same constricting pressure filling out his throat, again the struggle to breathe and the sensation of being stripped bare from the inside out.

            When it was done, it retracted itself and pointed with a twig-like arm, right back at Prompto. It took Prompto a moment, then he realised. His eyebrows raised and he felt the daemon shuffle atop him in satisfaction.

            ‘Oh. Not just Ardyn. _I_ understand you too.’ The daemon said nothing, but stroked along his shoulder again.

            _Well, shit. It likes me._

            It seemed to have decided he understood it – and on some level he did, but he had considered that to be just basic empathy, nothing special – so while he had it on his side, he decided to keep going.

            ‘You … talk with him like this a lot.’

            A dip of the head. _Yes._

‘You’re the only one who talks with him so closely.’

            Another dip. Gods, this was … kind of sad.

            ‘You care about him.’

            _‘I care about all who suffer.’_

The words left a foul ring in his ears – _how can you care about someone like him? Someone who did these things to me, to my friends?_ — but Prompto decided it was best not to challenge the daemon on that. Not something he wanted to think too deeply on, either. His eyes filled with water in lieu of the words he wanted to say, and the most painful thing about that was watching the daemon extend one tendril to wipe the tears away.

            He decided to gamble one last guess.

            ‘You’re going to show me the way out of here,’ he said. He tried to speak with conviction, not that he had much left.

            A still moment passed, in which small snowflakes settled on the daemon’s bracken-dark hide, and Prompto wondered if he would be pushed down again, smothered under the creature’s bone-cracking weight.

            But the daemon lifted itself from his body in one fell swoop, joints cracking and tendrils slithering over cloying soil. It reared up and breathed in through what Prompto assumed must be its nose. Then, a nod.

 

There was a tower at the southeast end of the Risorath Basin. Prompto remembered it, only, when he had last seen it, it had been in ruins and they had been racing to get out of the line of sight of one of those damn gigantoads. This was _that_ part of the basin, just past the rock slabs where Ardyn had first —

            _where he had first kissed him_

 _—_ and yeah, ignore that, ignore that fact, because he was more interested in _what Ardyn had been doing out here all alone, anyway?_ He had wondered, at the time, why the man was wandering alone in the wilderness. Guy hadn’t even had Prompto’s excuse of wanting to take a decent photo of the scenery.

            Now it was starting to make sense. The whole region held a deep-seated importance for Ardyn, if what he was being shown was to be believed, and it wasn’t hard to imagine a man, aeons old, wandering the forgotten forests of his old domain. It made Prompto feel uncomfortable, in no small part because of what it had led to, but also, it made him feel lonely.

            Centuries of loneliness, walking in the shadow of his old empire, then a kiss from an unwilling pawn of his own devising — what, to sweeten the sting?

            Prompto was aware he was shaking. He gripped one arm fast with a firm hand, hard enough to pinch the skin.

            _Control yourself. Don’t let the daemon see._

            With laboured steps, he joined the daemon in the small paved courtyard before the tower’s entrance.

 _‘The Oracle King’s watchtower. Sanctuary,’_ the daemon said, and the lilted words bounced off the masonry as it snaked its way inside.

            Prompto raced up the stone steps to the sacred building, trying his best to catch up. The stairs were wide and thick and enough to tire his thighs before the first fifty were through, but eventually he made it to the top.

            Here, he found himself in a small room, no roof, utterly open to the elements. In the distance, around where the lake was in the current-day, stood the grand edifices of the city he had escaped, right in the dip of the basin. It formed a magnificent view out the arched window. Beneath his feet, snowflakes frosted the floor and in one corner of the room stood a single pulpit-like desk at which sat a cloaked man, book open before him. He seemed not to see Prompto, focussing only on the daemon currently clawing against the wall opposite, limbs akimbo and body bristling like a cornered cat.

            ‘Come to my watchtower to escape the pitchforks, have you?’ A voice so young, yet unmistakeably Ardyn’s. He rose from his desk and took slow steps towards the daemon, hand outstretched in a peaceful offering, eyes fixed on the daemon warily, but this bold move only made it twitch all the more.

            ‘I see. You don’t much enjoy being looked at directly, do you, now?’ Despite the apparent kindness of the words, Prompto detected a sort of condescension beneath it, much like the way the present-day Ardyn spoke to, well, almost anyone. Perhaps condescension was too simple a word. More like … an awareness of the status he held above his subject. A gentle awareness, but it was there nonetheless.

            The most meagre of whimpers from the daemon. It seemed too exhausted, too scared of the people out for its blood to notice.

            ‘You’re a creature of this swamp. Been here a long time, since before we built Kveldslyset, hmm?’

            The creature sniffed. That would be a _yes_.

            ‘But, you know, it’s not nice to lure people to their deaths.’

            Now the creature tried to speak, voice cracking like twigs. And now, confusion, as Prompto could no longer make sense of its words. Huh. Maybe it only worked when it was speaking directly to him.

            _‘Det var ikke min skyld,’_ it said. _‘Nødvendig … nødvendig…’_

A pitying frown.

            ‘Hush now. I shan’t hurt you.’ And he continued advancing, with all the tact and skill of a lion tamer. ‘Shh, come along. Come along.’

            Then the strangest thing happened. A halo appeared in the space above Ardyn’s head, glowing a faint unearthly gold, and around his hands flared a field of energy not unlike the gravisphere projectiles Prompto liked to use on his weaponry. The field pulsed purple and red, and the daemon lulled into it like it was leaning in for an embrace. The air prickled with miasma, a dark fog that seemed to make Ardyn choke, but he quickly recovered, and crooned a sort of lullaby to the daemon, keeping it calm, keeping it _loved_ , while he absorbed it.

            Prompto stared, a mixture of revulsion and pity coursing through him.

            Once it was done, Ardyn fell to the floor, gasping and choking, and it took all of Prompto’s willpower not to rush forward and help. He still wasn’t keen to forgive him for _anything_. He watched as Ardyn coughed out black bile, panicking, then swallowing what hadn’t escaped, keeping it down, keeping it _inside_ to let it fester and tear him apart. The gold light about his head began to fracture, and once the absorption was complete, it dissipated back into the ether, leaving him just another part of the darkness.

            ‘It worked … Ha, ha - to think the old priest doubted me!’ Ardyn sounded gleeful, giddy. Eventually, he looked up from where he knelt on the floor, and his face shifted from young to old in the fraction of a second. Back to the devil Prompto knew all too well.

            ‘Welcome, my dear.’ The saccharine tone turned up to the max. All naivety and promise gone.

            Prompto said nothing. Still frozen on the top step, he tried his hardest to control his breathing. He was almost entirely certain this was a dream by now, and it was hard to stop the inexplicable urge to run forth and hug Ardyn, offer himself up to him, as in the first nightmare, the one he’d had in Lestallum. Barter for good treatment with kisses and kindness.

            As if he was going to do it. That wouldn’t work, hadn’t in any instance thus far, and besides, he was worried it would run the risk of making him want to _actually_ care. Painful enough as it was watching someone suffer abuse, even someone he hated.

            So instead, he raised his hand to his hollowed-out breast, where the softly-ticking Magitek core lay, and he said, ‘What did you do to me?’

            Ardyn’s smile quirked up in its familiar fashion. He seemed pleased. ‘Such a cold tone, for someone who knows me so very well,’ he mocked, sitting back on his heels. ‘Oh, it’s just a little thing, a small reminder of who you are.’

            ‘It’s not funny.’

            ‘My dear, it was never intended to be.’

            ‘Why am I here?’ He cut off the end of Ardyn’s sentence. Something about watching this vulnerable moment the man had shared with his first daemon gave him a small speck of courage, and he didn’t want to let go of it.

            ‘The nøkk wanted to show you something.’ Ardyn stood up and sighed like he was dealing with an errant animal. ‘I let it do so. On the proviso I got the chance to show you something of my own, too.’

            Prompto couldn’t stop a shiver flickering over his skin. He wanted to edge backwards but remained frozen. Didn’t want to give away any movement. At the same time, he considered the new word. _Nøkk._ Was that the name for the daemon? He didn’t know what it stood for, but it seemed to fit it well.

            Ardyn was still watching him, waiting for him to bite. So, he did.

            ‘Fine. What is it?’

            With an unnecessary flourish, Ardyn raised his hand, pointed towards Prompto’s chest. ‘Your heart. Needless to say, it isn’t really made of metal. However, I made it so because I wanted to draw your attention to it.’

            ‘Why?’ He tried to keep his words short and clipped. Too much, and he’d run the risk of showing emotion. He couldn’t let himself do that.

            ‘It’s the biggest difference between us, Prompto. You have an expiry date. Your cells, much as Verstael tried to perfect them, won’t last anywhere near as long as the average human. By the time you’re, oh, say, thirty? Your time may run out. Well,’ — and here he swayed in closer to him — ‘not if I keep you inside this little time stitch, of course.’

            Prompto didn’t move. He could feel his nostrils flaring wide, the only response he permitted himself for the fear. Focussing on breathing, on trying to stop tears leaking from his eyes, took all his energy.

            _I don’t want to die._

_I don’t want to be trapped here with him, either._

            There was no reason for Ardyn to keep him here, though. He was just a diversion, someone to unleash his trauma upon while he waited for his real prey. Noctis. The Lucis Caelums. His own flesh and blood, if the dream was to be believed.

            _I’m just a cheap alternative for your therapy._

The little tick-tick-tick of the circuitry inside his chest formed a metronome beat to his thoughts as they started to run amok, tripping over themselves in the lull in conversation. He didn’t want to speak, but he had no idea how to make it stop. It was growing too intense.

            Luckily, Ardyn broke the pattern.

            ‘It’s time we returned to the Keep, don’t you think?’

            As Ardyn leaned in to gently grasp his wrist, Prompto fell listless under his sway. He was utterly weightless in that moment, not convinced that this was the end — because why believe anything Ardyn said? — but since there was no better alternative, he fell into obedience, and let himself be led back down the tower.


	10. Shine On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the end of the line, and Noctis has nearly reached the Keep, but Prompto has been led so close to the edge now that whether he will make it or not is entirely up to chance.  
> A final chapter, in which Ardyn is terrible at farewells.

 

The steps of the tower straightened out into flatness and fog clouded Prompto’s vision. The hand that had been dragging him downward all but disintegrated and he span around, searching for Ardyn, for anyone, in the growing haze. For an endless moment, his electric heart leapt in his chest, with the same deep-pitted shock of missing a last step on a staircase, or of being jolted awake from the brink of sleep.

            ‘I’m surprised you ended up back in the throne room, honestly.’

            The scathing tone cut through the fog, rousing Prompto’s senses. He turned on his heel, watching the rough tower brickwork melt into gold-plated walls and smooth polished flooring. The throne room he had been in earlier — and how that seemed like aeons ago now — when Ardyn had presented him to Emperor Iedolas Aldercapt. And Ardyn himself stood only metres away, watching him in amusement, like an expectant child who wished to see which way their precious spinning-top would land.

            _I’m back in the Keep. Okay. Stay calm. Catch your breath first._

            The ticking sound in his chest melted into nothing, and he felt a sharp thudding pain in its place, soft and repetitive, like the beat of a drum. He blinked. He was half-crouched, hands bracing themselves on his knees, as if he had been running long-distance and was only just given opportunity to rest. Looking down, he saw there was no hole in his chest. Only fabric; his tank top with the white pipe pattern, dirtied and frayed at the edges now, but overall intact. It still felt weird, though. Fuck, just thinking about the caved-in ribs and the horrific gap he’d felt there what seemed like only moments ago made all the nerves across his chest pulse softly, prickling with heat.

            He hoped this was real, but … not like he could do much about it if it wasn’t. Pointless to worry, probably.

            _Just take in your surroundings instead. Focus._

            Not only was there an odd whistling in the air – similar to the sound that sometimes accompanied Noctis’s Armiger activating – but there was also a distracting noise in the background, guttural and low, and he wanted to turn his head, scope out the danger, but his mind was busy running relays, and if he moved now he might fall and never get up. Or so it seemed.

            _Breathe in. Breathe out. Try again._

            As he gathered his chaotic thoughts, Ardyn continued his taunting, hands flourishing in the air as if leading an orchestra.

            ‘Oh, how I watched you run, while you were off in your little fantasy.’

            Prompto watched Ardyn’s hands twirl. Why the show? Why now? After everything that had passed, it was almost insulting. So he said between gritted teeth, sparing no sarcasm, ‘“My” fantasy?’

            Ardyn opened his mouth, probably to make some scathing retort, but a noise behind them drew their attention, and Ardyn focussed on the space over Prompto’s shoulder, merely smiling instead. Not an inviting sign, by any means. Prompto turned, and an ugly, seething mess greeted his eyes. There, draped off the throne, was what was left of the Emperor. Half his body had been taken over by that dark daemonic ooze, and was blown out of proportion, all extruding bone and jagged edges and raw, meaty sinew. It looked like his skin had been ripped off, like his underlying flesh had been caught in the midst of some blast and frozen in time in a half-exploded state. The remaining half was human, but as tainted as Verstael had looked before he’d shot him, way back in the mountains.

            Prompto couldn’t tear his eyes away.

            ‘What the hell happened to him?’

            A chuckle, now, from behind him. ‘Oh, he’ll fall for anything, the simple fool.’

            It was at this point that Iedolas noticed him, and his guttural groans turned to frenzied spits of rage. He tried to speak, but with his jaw blown out on one side and disfigured, it ended up a mash of barely-coherent syllables instead.

            ‘Y-you… You! Poison! Poison!’ Iedolas repeated himself, one daemon-fused arm flailing about, striking the throne with abandon. It didn’t look like he felt it. Then he lunged forward, aiming for Prompto with a wild cry. He looked as feral as the daemons they had encountered in the royal tombs, and twice as out-of-control. It came so fast that Prompto barely had time to register what was happening.

            A flash of red-purple light across his vision. Hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He turned, aware he was gaping, as Ardyn stepped forward with hand extended, the offshoots of dark magic sputtering away in dying embers.

            ‘It’s not his place to hurt you,’ said Ardyn, still focussed on the daemon Emperor. Prompto doubted the man — if he could even be called such any more — was going to pose a threat now, all curled up against the stone steps, writhing those abhorrent limbs in agony. He looked at the broken, decaying creature and tried to recover his breath. The attack had given him a scare, made his already aching muscles twitch and strain uncomfortably, and distantly, he noted a lancing pain threading its way through his body. He stared at the cowering Iedolas, and asked Ardyn again.

            ‘What did you do to him?’

            ‘What did _I_ do? Oh, come now, do you not remember?’

            It seemed like aeons ago, the conversation he’d had with Ardyn after returning from the throne room the first time. _Of course. My blood was never going to work anyway. And now the man blames me for his state._ He sniffed, and turned away from Iedolas.

            Back to Ardyn. Always, ever back to him.

            He felt the air thicken, drawing in like blankets around him. Ardyn dropped all flamboyant pretence, eyes fixated only on Prompto now.

            ‘Come closer.’

            Prompto winced, knitting his eyebrows together.

_Fine. What else can I do? I’m exhausted. Everything hurts._

He didn’t have the strength left to run if he disobeyed.

_Okay. This’ll be fine._

_Just keep telling yourself that_ , the part of his mind that sounded like Ardyn whispered. He shoved it away, took a deep breath, and approached, heart hammering all heavy and alien with each step. And he was met with surprising softness. A sigh from Ardyn, and a stroke of the hair that made Prompto almost want to lean in.

            ‘Yes, there’s a good boy.’

            He let himself fall slack in Ardyn’s embrace. The coat was perversely comforting, the only warmth he’d felt in a long time. Ardyn gathered him up in his arms, and at first the weightlessness was frightening, but Ardyn’s hold was firm. Secure. ‘We ought to return,’ Ardyn said, and then a solemn edge hit his voice. ‘Your Prince awaits.’

            Prompto let himself be carried - as if he had much choice - and he settled for watching the ceiling lights pass by, framed by Ardyn’s wild hair. He was no longer feeling as cogent as he had been during the dream. Strange, how that worked out. But now, Iedolas’s guttural cries grew fainter, and the ceilings shifted from smooth, unsullied gold to dark metal, all pipes and rusted gratings.

            The first set of stairs they hit jolted him, and again came that lancing pain. He reached up to his chest, thumbing the patch of skin just below his left shoulder. It felt all puffy through his vest. He frowned, felt the edges a bit more. The stabbing sensation returned when he pressed just a little too hard, and … was that a bandage?

            ‘I really did shoot you, you know.’ Ardyn, gazing down at him while he walked. He spoke as if this was inconsequential, as if he was discussing something of no more import than the flavour of tea he preferred. But for Prompto, the words set him on edge. He was still struggling enough as it was to identify dream from reality, and the thought that he really had been shot, the thought that all that agony had been real, it was enough to make him sick.

            His stomach rebelled, but he held it down. He wasn’t fool enough to risk puking on Ardyn’s clothes.

            ‘Why am I not dead?’ _And what’s more, why would you bother patching me up?_ That last part went unasked, but he may as well have spoken aloud, because no sentiment seemed to escape Ardyn’s notice.

            ‘Come now, as if I would hit any major organs. Can’t have you shedding more blood than necessary, either. You still have a part to play.’

            _A part to play … that’s all this is to you, isn’t it?_

He sniffed again, tears pricking at his eyes, and he kept staring up at the ceiling, determined not to close his eyes or lower them lest the tears spilled over. He was trembling, he was aware of that, and Ardyn was too, because now he was hushing him, rocking him slightly as he walked, as if aiming to send him to sleep.

            Safe in the arms of the beast, Prompto left himself drift.

He came to with a sharp breath. The creaking of iron bars being pushed aside had roused him. All around, dust kicking up in the air. Cold grey shelves filled with odds and ends. A single buzzing bulb low on power. And that infernal device, the centrepiece of the room, welcoming him back with open, metal arms.

            Ardyn stooped down to lay him on the floor, then half-knelt, half-crouched beside him while he steadied himself. That cruel yet benevolent face so close now, much closer than he had been while carrying him back down here, but that hardly mattered. He had grown painfully accustomed to the proximity.

            The simpler, tired part of his mind wondered what Ardyn’s hair would feel like between his fingers. It looked fluffy in this light. It still looked like — _wine, like those crusted iron flakes that cluster on the lip of the bottle, like bloodstains, like unhealed wounds reopening and it’s all so dirty and wrong —_ but it also possessed a strange kind of softness.

He wanted to touch. To trace the man’s hairline, to see what it felt like.

            _I was under your skin. How odd, to be on this side now._

            Being so close and looking, _really_ looking, into those intense eyes brought back every inch of torture that had rained down upon the man’s body at the hands of those ancient zealots. And by the gods, it had been so much. So much, and more likely than not it was only the tip of the iceberg. _How could someone endure so much and survive?_

            He reached up in wonder, traced a soft circle upon the centre of Ardyn’s forehead, echoing the form of the talisman, marvelling at how unexpectedly smooth the skin was there.

            ‘Where they…’

            No need to say more. Ardyn’s eyebrows did a curious thing, stitching upward as if trying to block out the memory. His body grew tense at Prompto’s touch. Eyes half-closed, lips fallen slightly apart. Only a fraction away from trembling.

 _He’s a frightened animal. Still a predator. But frightened_. Prompto had seen a coeurl like this, once. They’d cornered it in Duscae before they realised it had an injured paw, and Ignis had somehow managed to get close without letting it bolt. It hadn’t enjoyed being so out of control.

            And Ardyn didn’t, either. A hand caught his wrist.

            ‘Stop.’

            ‘I’m … I’m sorry.’ He fussed and fretted, trying to find the right words.  But try as he might, eloquence escaped him and he settled for grasping at Ardyn’s clothes, burying his head against the man’s broad chest. ‘I wish it didn’t hurt like this. Why…?’ His frustration, his struggle to understand why pain had to be an option at all made his voice wind up in a strangled yell and he gave up talking altogether. He held on and sobbed into Ardyn, expecting to be reprimanded for it, but lacking the mental acuity to stop himself. Everything that had happened since boarding the train — _no, let’s be fair, now, since leaving for Cape Caem —_ had grown too overwhelming, and far too much to rein in. Before he knew it, he was holding on not for Ardyn’s sake but for his own, clutching the fabric tight, twisting it in his fingers, grasping like it was a life float.

            _You’d do anything for a bit of comfort,_ the internal voice that sounded far too much like Ardyn cut in.

            The real Ardyn was, strangely, far more forgiving. He stroked Prompto’s hair, and embraced him back, sighing as if on the verge of tears. Prompto nestled into the crook of his collarbone, burying his face beyond that ostentatious ruff until he hit bare skin, and he pressed soft, simple kisses into the flesh of Ardyn’s neck, each one a little plea for kindness. The first kiss made Ardyn’s hands tremble where he stroked, but by the fourth or fifth, he had regained some semblance of control. And then, all choked-up, he responded to Prompto’s unasked-for ministrations.

            ‘They should have picked you. If only you had existed, in Solheim, in those times. They should have picked you, oh, Shiva knows you would have taken it all and suffered for them so, so beautifully.’ He prised Prompto away from his chest, and cupped his face in both hands. ‘Like I said before, it’s what I love most about you.’ A dark expression overcame him. ‘But at the same time … it makes me so terribly mad.’

            Everything shifted in a heartbeat. Ardyn’s brow furrowed and his hand rose up and he struck Prompto hard and fast, and kept striking, unleashing all his deep-seated anger at full force.

            ‘No! Please!’ Prompto yelped as the first blow made contact against his temple. He had taken a gamble with his kindness, and he had gambled wrong.

            _I got too close._

Just like Ignis with the coeurl - what had happened in the end, again? He’d tried to heal it, but in the end, it lashed out. Ignis probably still had the scar on his upper arm to show for it.

            The next blow made contact with the side of his head, knocking him clean over. He fell to the side, cheek hitting the gritty floor, jaw shuddering from the impact. Shivering pain radiating across the bridge of his nose.

            He tried to shield his face, to curl up, to protect himself, but his efforts were fruitless. Ardyn broke through each and every time, raining down force upon his face, his head, his hands, his upper arms, and it hurt, it hurt like he couldn’t believe. Each hit an explosion flowering on his skin, a burst to his brain, making his mind spin into chaos. If the pain didn’t knock him out, the shock surely had to. It was too much, there was no way he could withstand it.

            It took him a long time to figure out that Ardyn wasn’t punishing him so much as overreacting to feeling out of control. And yet, rationalising the reason behind it didn’t do him much good, in the moment. It still hurt like hell.

            _‘May the Lord accept this sacrifice at my hands, this pure victim, this spotless victim…’_ Ardyn had broken off from hitting him now, and was muttering another incantation, words seemingly remembered from another place and time. It sounded powerful, dangerous, and undeniably about him. The words repeated, making it sound like he was teetering on the edge of madness, and Prompto stayed incredibly still. No reason to incite more anger. But he need not have worried. Ardyn was only listening to what was going on inside his own head. ‘It’s never enough, gods be damned, it’s never enough!’

            He fell to the floor, cursing, striking the ground with his fist in desperation. After a while he lapsed into silence, the sounds of panting the only thing that filled the air.

            Prompto forced himself back to a vague sitting position, slumped on his heels on the ground, bent forward, hands covering his face. Every part of his posture a feeble shield, a last resort at protection. Evidence of a creature pushed to the edge so many times that now all that was left was the instinctive, animalistic urge to protect against the anticipated blow. It was hard, so incredibly hard, to avoid wincing with pain with each small movement, and yet somehow he managed it.

            It took some time for Ardyn to notice him again, and when he did, Prompto hardly needed to remove his hands from his face. He could hear it in the way Ardyn sucked in breath. And just like that, he was in the spotlight again.

            ‘Hands down. Put them on your knees.’ Back in control of his faculties, Ardyn held a commanding edge to his tone now, and it was not something to be taken lightly. And so, helplessly, Prompto complied. A smile beaming down on him was his reward, and Ardyn said, ‘Good.’

_Are you going to hurt me again?_

He wanted to ask but he didn’t dare. He waited for Ardyn to get up, kneeling there, hands on knees oh-so obediently, and for once, his efforts were rewarded. A gentle ruffle of his hair, such a contrast to the beating he had just taken. He breathed in and out with measure, tried to control his initially-panicked reaction.

            ‘Come now, Prompto. You have been out of your cage long enough.’

            Now Ardyn extended a hand, and the fire danced in his eyes as he waited for Prompto to take it. Again, the question whirling inside his head: would Ardyn hurt him again?

_I don’t care, I don’t care._

            Only, when the threat of being strapped into the machine again presented itself, he realised he still did care. Very much. He let Ardyn pull him upright, but the very first step forward brought the machine sharply into his vision and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He half-closed his eyes, head leaning listlessly off to one side as he stood right where he was, and said, ‘No … no…,’ shaking his head softly because he was _so tired_ of all this. And when Ardyn grasped his arms and manoeuvred him back towards the rig, he collapsed into tears.

            ‘Don’t resist. Not now.’

            ‘Please. I don’t want to…’

            ‘Oh, why hide from it now? You’re a machine, Prompto. A vassal for my retribution. A means to an end.’ Some dark expression crossed over Ardyn’s face as he said this last part, and he looked all the more smug for it when he returned to pushing Prompto backward. ‘But oh, if it isn’t the best means.’

            ‘I’m not … I don’t want…’

            All that earned him was another slap. It was nowhere near as hard as the earlier hits, but it was enough to send him quaking.

            ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ He didn’t even know what he was apologising for. It was more an invocation for mercy. But he was ignored, as he expected would happen. Ardyn pushed him backward until his shoulder blades hit metal. Now, the right arm, raised up to the level of the first restraint, and clamped down into the cold frame. He shivered, muscles retracting almost instantly and earning no movement. Held firm. Making no comment, Ardyn moved on to the left arm.

            ‘No … please…’

            ‘Shh.’ A firm grip around his throat and that low-spoken word was all he needed to quell his objections. He bit his lip as Ardyn worked, knowing what was coming next, and dreading it. A small whimper as the arms of the machine began to retract upwards, raising him off the ground. The familiar tug at his shoulder joints, the strain of being lifted entirely off the ground with no recourse. And now, the claw-like clamps coming in at the sides, pressing down firm over his ribs. Iron bands securing his torso ever more tightly to the rig. With the whole contraption leaning forward just slightly, all that pressure was placed on all the worst points of his body. Again, the strain, the ache, adding to his already-bruised body. This time, he was already at his breaking point, and his lungs could not handle much more, his breath pulled short enough as it was. That fresh wound just above his heart throbbed with the tightness. He closed his eyes tight.

            ‘Please, just end it.’ He didn’t know what he was asking for an end to. But his words made Ardyn’s eyes flicker.

            ‘Ah. Perhaps now you do understand me. How wonderful it feels to share the burden.’ Never had Ardyn sounded more truthful than he did right then. ‘One day we shall both get our wish. But not today.’

            A hallowed silence dropped over the room. Dust seemed to hang in the air in perfect stillness while Ardyn moved forward. Prompto was raised so high now into the air that he was on a level with the man, for once, and it didn’t take any bowing or bending for Ardyn to lean in and hold himself against his spread-out body, grasping his head and resting his forehead gently on Prompto’s.

            That heady, arcane scent invaded Prompto’s senses again. Herbs and spices and woodsmoke. Things to shroud the scent of decay. Things that felt sour to him, but also, regrettably, familiar. With no breath nor energy to spare to shut it out, he let it wash over him.

            Ardyn held that position pressed against Prompto for precious few seconds, foreheads touching, his hands holding the sides of Prompto’s head, fingers all messed up in his hair, as if he was attempting to communicate telepathically with him. Strange, how there was nothing sexual about it. Prompto half-expected it to descend into something more, but the moment never came. Ardyn’s lips parted, and instead of claiming Prompto’s mouth, he spoke.

            ‘My beautiful angel,’ he said. A self-indulgent press into the bandaged wound on Prompto’s chest — drawing a harried cry — and another soft whisper. ‘A hole in your soul to remember me by.’

            Then his demeanour shifted entirely. The fond expression dropped, and he switched to checking the device over with a distracted gaze. The wrist restraints tightened ever so slightly and — no, that was too much, it _pinched —_ but now Ardyn was moving away toward the door. He didn’t even look at him after that.

            ‘Wait! Where … where’re you going?’

            Ardyn gave no response. As he reached the door, he flicked a hand upward, and the clock on the wall came unstuck, the second hand moving freely now and ticking over three a.m.

            Time was flowing properly again, but this was all wrong. How, after all this, after all they had been through, could Ardyn walk away without so much as a backward glance?

            ‘Ardyn! Ardyn — agh!’ The iron bands around his chest stole his breath away before he could continue his shouting. He wanted to continue — he wanted to say _after all we’ve been through, you’ll end it like this? After what we shared? After what you made me bear witness to?_

All his thoughts were in vain; fraction by fraction, the shadow of the fallen healer disappeared down the hall, paying him no further mind, and this, the final act, was so cold and unfeeling that, were it not for the clock obediently ticking away above him, he would be forgiven for assuming he was still in the dream. Now, finally alone in the darkness, with not even the nøkk for company, Prompto fell into solitary vigil.

 

A while later, a voice came through on the tannoy system. Ardyn, again, only this time he wasn’t speaking to Prompto.

            ‘How does it feel to be all alone?’ A soft laugh, which sounded so tinny on the speaker system. ‘Oh, Noct, you really are helpless without your friends.’

            Prompto twitched in the rig, muscles sluggishly rebelling against the movement, hurting and aching and begging for relief, but he paid it little mind. Something more important had overridden his senses.

            _Noctis is here._

            Noctis had arrived at the Keep and Ardyn was taunting him. Prompto’s heart leapt in his chest, making him wince against his bonds.

            _Please, Noct, come and find me. Please._

            The next sentence made him flinch at the mention of his own name.

            ‘Poor Prompto must be feeling the heat right about now.’

            Hearing Ardyn taunt Noctis brought a whole bundle of emotions rising to the surface. They had obviously been stewing inside him a while, because half the sentences he thought of were fully-formed and ferocious. _How dare you use me to toy with him? And yes, this hurts, but it’s nowhere close to what you just put me through. I was feeling the ‘heat’ a long fucking time ago, you bastard._

Anger was acceptable. Anger was good. Especially when Ardyn wasn’t there, scrutinising him. He had the space to really _feel_ it in the man’s overpowering absence.

            The next half hour was an endless, repetitive cacophony of distant clashes and clangs in the fortress, and the constant companion of Ardyn’s voice over the tannoy, taunting what could only be Noctis — _don’t even doubt it, Prompto, it has to be him —_ as he made his way through the maze towards him. Gods, he hoped he was coming for him and not the crystal. He lay in limbo for a good long while. Then, breaking the spell, a light at the end of the corridor drew his attention. His eyes were half-shut, partly from inflammation — those bruises Ardyn had gifted him were no joke — and partly from fatigue. But the light broke through, a warm, pinkish glow on the inside of his eyelids, and when he opened them he saw a sharp flashlight pointed his way. Noctis, flanked by both Gladio and Ignis.

            _The whole gang’s here. For me?_

He could have wept. He probably did. He couldn’t tell any more.

            Noctis’s face was a picture of shame.

            To make matters worse, the instant Noctis approached the iron-barred door, the instant he forced it open with the glowing keycard he held all-too-rigidly in one hand, Ardyn thought it appropriate to utter, all low and dark and near-on _seductive_ over the tannoy, ‘I knew you’d go that way. Oh, you’re _such_ a tease.’

            Noctis wasn’t looking at him, and that was the worst thing. He seemed almost too ashamed to do so. Was he? Was it too embarrassing to see him like this? Or did he feel like it was his fault?

            Working the restraints loose took a bit of time, and each second dragged like a godforsaken eternity. Gladio was in charge of the left side, and he fucked up the timing a little, letting Prompto fall loose before Noctis could catch him. He fell to his knees too fast, too hard. Probably more bruises now.

            Noct was saying his name. He was repeating it like a prayer, and that hurt, that brought back sour thoughts. He focussed on the others for a moment. Ignis was asking him something - what was he saying? Something about being injured, about needing help.

            ‘No, no, I’m fine, I’m…’ He trailed off. It was probably plain as the light of day that he wasn’t fine, but he stuck to it anyway.

            Gladio didn’t seem convinced. Kept asking him if he was all right. A gruff voice at his shoulder, it reminded him too much of the guards in the dream. The hallucination. The memory. Whatever the fuck it was, it could fuck right off. He shivered, and tried to hide the fear.

            ‘Seriously, I’m … Thanks for saving me. Thank you.’

            Noctis was holding a hand out to him, leaning in to him as he knelt back on his heels. A totally different vibe to Ardyn’s presence, something he could lean toward without fear of retribution. That soft, gorgeous face — he could fucking cry.

            And in contrast, he must be so _dirty_ , so caked in grime and dirt and saliva and blood and all manner of unsavoury things.

            He was distantly aware that he was asking Noctis if he missed him. It smarted, how it made Noctis’s face crease up in disbelief, in _guilt._ And there, Noctis telling him that of _course_ he missed him, of course he had worried. The soft touch of Noct’s hand clasping gently over his own was enough to shatter his last attempt at holding composure. He twitched his hand away, blinking to stop his tears falling. He said sorry, said his wrist ached, and the three of them were so understanding, backing off, giving him space. They must think he didn’t want to be touched — he could see it in their eyes, the way they shifted to avoid his gaze — but it wasn’t that, he could handle it. He could. He’d gotten so far on being able to handle _touch_ … so damn far. No, this was just … this was _shame_.

            He felt like he’d disappointed them all. Caused them so much extra trouble. Couldn’t cry now, couldn’t let them see. _Show some strength, for once._ Heaving out breath, he forced himself to his feet.

            ‘I told myself I couldn’t die. not until I saw you. Not until I could hear you say that I’m the real me.’

            Gods, how he hoped it was true.

            They were a long way out of the keep yet, but with Noctis at his side, surely he stood a chance of making it out in one piece. He gripped Noct’s hand extra tight, not minding the ache it caused him, nor the surprised look he got in return, and he focussed on his new mantra, repeating it like a charm, an invocation.

            _I’m the real me._

           

They continued on through the facility for a half hour before Prompto’s legs gave way beneath him. He had been trying so hard to keep face, but there was no way to avoid reaching his limit, and this sucked, because so far he had been relying on pushing forward, on not stopping or giving himself time to think. But moving became like wading through treacle, and, like on so many occasions from the past few days, he was not given any choice about it.

            ‘Perhaps we ought to stop for a break,’ Ignis had suggested. Prompto really hadn’t wanted to, but he’d been forced to concede. He wasn’t in any shape to help them like this. And so, they had taken refuge in one of the staff dormitories. It wasn’t just Prompto, or so Ignis said. They all needed a break. Noctis, in particular, was in a state of permanent stasis, thanks to Ardyn deactivating the Armiger – and finally, there was the explanation for the strange whistling sound in the air. A cruel touch on Ardyn’s part, disabling him so literally. It was painful to watch Noctis stumble down the corridors on cramped-up legs, more painful than thinking about his own injuries. Noctis was not doing well at all.

            And true enough, the instant they reached the dorm, Noctis crumpled onto the bed. Ignis took to a nearby chair, and Gladio grabbed an energy drink from the vending machine in the corner before moving to the door to stand guard. Nobody spoke much, and the air hung heavy with unasked questions. That was okay, for now. He wouldn’t even know where to begin.  How could he tell them about Verstael and the Magitek laboratory, let alone everything with Ardyn? His mouth wouldn’t … it felt all locked up at the very idea of forming the words.

            He had to, eventually. Sooner or later they would notice the bandage beneath his vest, and they’d start asking. And besides, he had to tell them about Iedolas.

            Making decisions was too difficult, so he contented himself with obeying Ignis for the time being. _Come now, be a good boy for them._ Sitting on the scratchy bunk, Prompto let his muscles relax. It was soft, far softer than the — than the bed at the shrine, than anything he’d experienced since, oh gods, probably Altissia — and this was upsetting. The idea that anything should have the right to be so soft seemed impossible. Lying down was a shock to his lungs, but he managed it in the end, and finally he allowed himself to think the thought he’d been far too scared to thus far.

            It’s over. _It’s over._

            He curled up into himself. It was never going to be over.

_How could you even let yourself think that? You’re going to wake up, any second, and he’ll be there. Smiling at you, reaching out for you…_

A small cry escaped his lips.

            ‘Prompto? Everything okay?’ Ignis, again. Always the first to jump to his aid, always so attentive.

            On the bunk beside him, Noctis shifted, pulling himself out of sleep. Soft-lidded almond eyes, so deep blue, so calming in comparison to what he had grown to expect, just looking at him with nothing but warmth.

            _Please don’t be Ardyn. Please._

            The most awful thing was he almost wanted it to be Ardyn. The way he’d left him, the way he’d just _discarded_ him … he wanted there to be something more. So much of what had happened had seemed special, in a perverse way, and to be relegated to nothing more than a distraction in the end made it all so pointless, all so unbearable. He couldn’t live with that.

_And yet I can’t live with the idea of you being him either, Noctis. And more than that. Could be you. Could be anyone. I’m scared of looking in the mirror. What if I still look like him?_

If his bottom lip trembling was visible, Noctis must have noticed. He was giving him that look, the one that made his eyebrows crease upwards ever so slightly. All care and concern, in the most awkwardly Noctis way possible.

            ‘We got you, Prom.’

            ‘Yeah,’ he murmured. Then, to Iggy, ‘I’m okay.’

            Ignis didn’t seem convinced, but he made no further comment.

            Prompto tried to control his breathing, just like Iggy had taught him — seemed so long ago now — and he laid his head back down on the pillow. Inside his mind, shadows spiralled out into galaxies and bright golden light. It was beautiful, so beautiful, and it had poisoned him to the core.

            _Six have mercy, how the hell do I recover from something like this?_

            The others had quietened down, so, back to his solitary vigil. And maybe one day, like Ardyn said, they would both get their wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---------------  
> The hardest part comes after the storm.
> 
> Prompto's got a lot of work to do once this is over.
> 
> Thank you, everyone, for reading this.


End file.
